By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: Teesta Setalvad heading the Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) received a severe setback as additional sessions judge here has asked her to surrender her passport to the police. The order was passed by judge S B Gajre while granting her anticipatory bail in a case pertaining to alleged fabrication of evidence in Naroda Gam communal riot case of 2002 in which 11 Muslims were killed.
However, she has been allowed to take back her passport on court’s permission whenever she needs to travel abroad.
The court also asked Setalvad to cooperate whenever the investigating officer wanted to question or interrogate her.
The charges against Setalvad are very serious as, according to lawyers, she could face imprisonment up to 14 years in the case. The allegations against her are that she fabricated evidences that might result in life term for the accused.
The allegations were leveled against her by her former aide Raees Khan. Khan, who worked with Setalvad till January 2008, was charged of fabricating affidavits of witnesses of Naroda Gam case.
Justice S H Vora of the Gujarat High Court in December 2010, while hearing the Naroda Gam case, ordered registration of an FIR against Khan and his associates for allegedly fabricating affidavits filed before his court on behalf of the witnesses.
Though Khan sought quashing of the FIR against him saying that he as an employee of CJP had only helped the witnesses in preparing the affidavits at the behest of Setalvad heading CJP, the high court ordered a probe against Khan for preparing false evidence.
Khan submitted before the court that he only took instructions from Setalvad and persuaded riot victims and witnesses to file cases in the courts. Arguing that he had not fabricated the affidavits or evidences, Khan submitted that he used to get affidavits in the English language through e-mails, got them notarised and then sent them back to Setalvad or her advocates.
Setalvad is also facing a criminal case pertaining to 2006 exhuming of mass graves in Lunavada, near Godhra. It was again Khan, who was accused of exhuming the mass graves belonging to Muslim riot victims. However, he alleged that he had done so at the behest of Setalvad.
But Setalvad alleges that Khan is working at the behest of the state government at a moment when the judicial fight in the sensitive riot cases have reached a crucial stage.