SIT to probe conspiracy allegations against Teesta

Story by  IANS | Posted by  Aasha Khosa • 1 Years ago
Teesta Setelvad being produced in the court
Teesta Setelvad being produced in the court

 

Ahmedabad

Gujarat Director General of Police Ashish Bhatia has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under Deputy Inspector General Dipan Bhadaran to probe allegations of forgery and conspiracy against former DGP R.B. Sreekumar, former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and activist Teesta Setalvad.

After a criminal complaint was filed with the crime branch on Saturday evening, former DGP Sreekumar was arrested from Gandhinagar while Teesta was picked up from Mumbai and arrested on Sunday morning in Ahmedabad. Both were produced before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court on Sunday, where the crime branch demanded 14 days of remand for them.

Before producing them before the court, Crime Branch Deputy Commissioner Chaitainya Mandlik told the media, "Police will investigate conspiracy angle, it will check their bank transactions and other documents. Police will also investigate into who were behind them and instigating them for legal processes."

"Police will investigate financial transactions, whether there is any foreign funding to the NGO run by Teesta Setalvad and it will even investigate whether any politicians were behind instigating Teesta and the two police officers. If any foreign funding issues are revealed during investigation, if required even the Enforcement Directorate (ED) will be informed about such transactions," the officer added.

When Teesta was being taken to the Metro court in Ahmedabad, she said, "I am not a criminal."

Meanwhile, an Ahmedabad court sent former state DGP R.B. Sreekumar and activist Teesta Setalvad to five days police custody.

While the two were to be produced again in court on Friday, the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate granted permission to produce them on Saturday, as police requested the court that they are busy on July 1st due to Jagannath Yatra.

Setalvad complained to the court that she was picked up from Mumbai without any arrest warrant, and also questioned whether it justified to arrest her on the basis of FIR. She also alleged that she was illegally kept in custody from 3 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. on Saturday, and for a forgery case, Gujarat Police sent an ATS team to arrest her.

She also even submitted that she is cooperating with the investigation team.

However, Special Public Prosecutor Mitesh Amin submitted that police need their custody for 14 days, because they need to investigate who was funding the Setalvad's NGO, and who was instigating to run a malicious campaign against the state government.

Police need their custody to investigate who helped them to forge documents, who hatched the conspiracy and why, he said, alleging they did all this to mislead the judicial process