2002 Gujarat riots: High court says ‘not inclined’ to quash FIR against Teesta Setalvad in grave digging case

Setalvad was charged for allegedly exhuming bodies of 2002 Gujarat riots victims and “creating media sensation” by displaying the same through electronic media. Notably, in an FIR filed by the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) in Ahmedabad in 2022, the prosecution and police relied on this case against Setalvad to cite her criminal antecedents of allegedly fabricating evidence in connection to the Gujarat riots.

Setalvad is seeking to quash the FIR filed on January 2, 2006, and the chargesheet in the case. The FIR was filed under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 192, 193 (fabricating false evidence), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 295A(deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 297 (trespassing on burial grounds) and 114 (abetment).

The police, in the 2022 case, have alleged that Setalvad, along with two others — former IPS officers R B Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt — tried to implicate the then Gujarat chief minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, higher officials of the state government, and top leaders of the BJP for the large-scale deaths in the 2002 communal riots by initiating a fake case.

Setalvad was arrested in June 2022 by the Anti Terrorism Squad of Gujarat within 24 hours of the Supreme Court dismissing a plea preferred by Zakia Jafri, the widow of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, for a probe into the larger conspiracy case behind the riots. She was granted bail by the apex court in July 2023.

In November 2023, the Supreme Court granted anticipatory bail to Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds meant for victims of the Gujarat riots.