Police summon Teesta Setalvad for questioning in exhumation case

Social activist Teesta Setalvad has been summoned on May 9 by the district police in connection with the 2006 Pandarwada case where bodies of post-Godhra riot victims had been exhumed four years after they were buried by the district administration.

Teesta had been called, as some of the accused in the case stated that they had exhumed the bodies at her behest, police said.

If she failed to appear, the local court hearing the case would be duly informed about it, police added.

Teesta has already obtained anticipatory bail from the court after she was named in the case by her former close aide, Rais Khan, who was then associated with Teesta's NGO, `Citizen for Justice and Peace' (CJP).

In 2002, the district administration had buried about 28 unidentified bodies of riot victims from Pandarwada and surrounding villages of Khanpur taluka in a graveyard off river Panam.

After over four years, Rais Khan, then with CJP, and 12 others exhumed these bodies without prior permission of the government, claiming that there was a bigger, "mass grave" of unidentified victims.

Following this a criminal complaint was registered against them for destroying the evidence, but the investigation began only last year.

The exhumed bodies were identified using DNA testing, and buried again.