Godhra riots: SIT betrayed Supreme Court’s trust, says Sanjiv Bhatt

IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has brought the conduct of the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) under the scanner by accusing it of leaking vital information about its probe and threatening prime witnesses. He also sought protection as he has no faith in the SIT.

Bhatt has made several allegations against the conduct of the SIT in an 18-page affidavit filed in the Apex court and urged it to ensure that the probe team acts upon leads given by prime witnesses and also ensure their safety.

In the affidavit, Bhatt has stated: "I believe it is my painful duty to bring to the notice of the court that the SIT does not appear to be living up to the enormous trust reposed in it by the Supreme Court of India, to conduct an impartial and thorough probe into the allegations of a larger conspiracy and administrative complicity behind the Gujarat riots of 2002."

The senior police officer has further stated that the SIT had allegedly not paid heed to documents, telephone call records and information provided by Bhatt during his interactions with top SIT officials.

In his affidavit, he starts first with details of how information of his scheduled deposition before the SIT had reached a top official of the Gujarat government before the deposition took place. He further says that he was contacted by the office of the SIT in November 2009 and asked to meet AK Malhotra (an official of the probe team) on a particular date.

"I was subsequently contacted once again by the office of the SIT and informed that the appointed date had been changed and postponed," Bhatt states in the affidavit.

"In the meantime, despite my having maintained complete confidentiality regarding the telephonic summons received from the SIT, I was approached by a very high-level functionary in the government of Gujarat and was sought to be appropriately briefed prior to my scheduled interaction with the SIT, " the affidavit states.

Bhatt has also alleged that his fears about the SIT not ensuring the confidentiality of his deposition were confirmed when the contents of his deposition as well as details of his answers to Malhotra and Paramveer Singh (another SIT member) were "somehow available to the highest echelons of the Government of Gujarat."

The IPS officer has further stated that during various phases of his deposition, he had requested the chairman of the SIT, RK Raghvan, to dissociate all officials and staff attached to the Gujarat government from the "task of recording, processing or safekeeping of my forthcoming deposition."

Bhatt has also accused the SIT of being reluctant to record his statements about Narendra Modi during his deposition in connection with the Gulbarg society massacre case.

"It was submitted to the SIT that the course of subsequent incidents of communal violence could be fully appreciated only in the light of the directions given by the Chief Minister during the meeting [on February 27, 2002 - a day before the riots - at the chief minister's residence in Gandhinagar]. However, I was informed by the SIT that all these aspects could not be gone into as my statement was being recorded in the further investigation of the Meghaninagar police station. The SIT, later on, on my insistence agreed to record the details of the meeting with the chief minister."

The SIT led by former CBI chief RK Raghavan was set up to examine some cases arising out of the riots of 2002. Later, it was asked by the Apex court to investigate the allegations made in the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of former Congress MP Ahesan Jafri who was killed during the riots. In her petition, Jafri has accused Narendra Modi and 61 others of aiding and abetting the communal riots of 2002.