By Special Correspondent, TwoCircles.net,
Ahmedabad: Fresh trouble appears to be brewing for Mumbai-based social activist Teesta Setalvad of the Citizens for Justice and Peace(CJP) as she has been summoned by the Godhra police for interrogation on July 18 in a case pertaining to the exhuming of 28 bodies of Panderwada riot victims in 2006.
Setalvad had been issued summons several times in the past but she did not appear before the police for interrogation giving different reasons. Police official B J Ninama who is investigating her case, told mediapersons that although Setalvad had obtained anticipatory bail, she has been summoned to give her statements in the case.
Teesta Setalvad
Earlier, she had been summoned to appear on May 9 but she moved the Gujarat High Court seeking cancellation of the summons and quashing of the FIR against her. She had stated that summons had been issued to her on the basis of a chargesheet in which she was mentioned as absconding. Though the court asked the police remove the portions showing as absconding, it did not quash the FIR.
The case pertains to the killing of 32 Muslims in Panderwada village of the Panchmahals district on March 1, 2002, during the anti-Muslim riots. The bodies of 28 victims were buried by the police in the bed of Panam river without performing the last rites as the relatives of the victims had fled away for the safety of their lives.
Though the relatives began a search for the bodies when they returned to the village, policemen did not tell them about their burial in the bed of the river. However, in 2006, they came to know that the bodies were buried in the bed of the river. They approached activist Raees Khan who was at that working with CJP.
Khan with the assistance of relatives of the victims, exhumed the bodies, conducted DNA tests on the bones of some of them and identified them by matching with DNA of the victims. But the police registered a criminal offence against Khan and others about unauthorized exhuming of bodies. However, they were not arrested as the Gujarat high court stayed proceedings against them.
But the case was re-opened in November 2010 when Khan fell out with Setalvad owing to personal reasons. Khan was arrested in the case and he implicated Setalvad, alleging he had exhumed the bodies at the behest of Stalvad. Surprisingly, all the 21 accused in the Panderwada massacre were acquitted by the Godhra sessions on October 29, 2002, for want of evidence.