Government gathers might to muzzle Teesta, say activists

A group of activists, social workers, lawyers and eminent media personalities on Monday held a press conference to show their solidarity with activist Teesta Setalvad, and to pointedly raise questions to the government for digging up a 12-year-old issue, timing suspiciously with the hearing of the case filed by Zakia Jafri against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 59 others in the 2002 Godhra riots case.

Social activist and writer Harsh Mander said that a state-sponsored pogrom like the Godhra riots need to be fought to ensure that this does not happen again. “If we allow state-sponsored violence to go unquestioned and unchecked, the idea of India will fall apart,” he said, citing how the victims of the 1983 Delhi riots, the 1993 Bombay riots and the 2002 Nellie massacre are still not compensated.

Teesta Setalvad, and her husband Javed Anand have been working to ensure justice for 2002 Gujarat riots victims, and has been working on 68 cases, some at the trial courts, some at the High Court, while a few at the Supreme Court. So far, 120 accused have been convicted in these cases.

Early this month, the CBI registered a case against Teesta and her husband for violating funds and under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), and for criminal conspiracy. After investigations, the CBI declared her a “threat to national security”. The High Court refused her an anticipatory bail, after which she moved Supreme Court, which gave her interim relief till July 10. Teesta has made public her documents since, and her statement to the court runs to 25,000 pages.  

The activists questioned the timing of  the case, as it coincided with the hearing of the Zakia Jafri case, adjourned at the moment as the Gujarat government said it needed more time for a response.

Writer-journalist Manoj Mitta, whose book The Fiction of The Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra raised several such questions said that had it not been for Teesta, there would not have been 120 convictions in the Gulberg massacre. “The kind of persecution she is facing should be fought,” he said.  

Activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan said that Teesta is framed for specific reasons. “Today, the Central government is putting its might to ensure that those accused in the 2002 riots are either released or reinstated, some even in offices like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). On the other hand, Teesta is hounded by being framed in a bogus case and without any proof, they want to have a custodial interrogation. The message is quite clear,” said Bhushan.  

CHARGES AGAINST TEESTA

In 2014, the Ahmedabad crime branch filed a case against Teesta Setalvad, Tanvir Jafri and others, on the behest of Feroze Khan Pathan, also a victim of Gulbarg massacre, for alleged fraud. They claimed that Teesta had collected Rs 1.51 crore to build a memorial for the 69 Gulbarga Society victims killed in the massacre. The HC pressed for her custodial interrogation, and Supreme Court in February this year stayed her arrest. In her reply, Teesta has showed that only Rs 4.6 lakh were collected for the memorial, and it remains untouched.

Early this month, the CBI registered a case against Teesta and her husband for violating FCRA norms. The complaint said that she took funds from foreign bodies like the Ford Foundation without notifying the Ministry of Home Affairs, and that she did not have separate accounts for domestic and foreign funds. The complaint also said that as the editor of a monthly she wrote for other publications. Teesta’s reply, running into 25,000 pages, has made her dealings public, and she is currently under interim relief from a Supreme Court order.