“This is nothing but a bid to subvert the cause of public justice and ensure that no justice happens in these cases.”
By TCN News,
Mumbai/New Delhi: A day after CBI conducted raids at the premises of social activist Teesta Setalvad, her husband and other officials of the Sabrang Communications and Publishing at Mumbai, support has poured in from all quarters on Wednesday for the beleaguered couple and their colleagues.
In a statement, Setalvad herself has termed the raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as a “shameful political vendetta” ahead of and in view of the final hearings in several important cases pertaining to 2002 post-Godhra communal violence in Gujarat.
The CBI raids were conducted in connection with a case filed against her in Gujarat wherein she is accused of appropriating funds collected for her NGO, which was helping victims of the communal riots in that state. CBI officials raided premises of Setalvad, her husband, Gulam Mohammed Peshimam and office of Sabrang Communications and Publications on Tuesday.
Setalvad’s statement: (Released on late Tuesday night)
“It is shocking that while over a dozen members of the CBI are still in our premises conducting the search, the CBI’s Delhi spokesperson is misleading the public and our vast supporters by misinformation and official tweets.
In our view, and we repeat, no laws have been broken by us. This is a continuation of the persecution and witch hunt first launched by the Gujarat police in 2014 then under the dispensation that (now) rules Delhi. The CBI has taken the same documents that we had voluntarily, on inspection, given to the MHA (FCRA department). Over 25,000 pages of documentary evidence has been given to the Gujarat Police.
When they could not succeed with the bizarre and desperate attempts to gain custody (February 2015), it was the Gujarat Government’s Home Department that wrote to the MHA and the current round of the persecutions began.
Its shameful political vendetta. The Zakia Jafri case begins its final hearings on July 27 2015. The Naroda Patiya appeals (Kodnani and Bajrangi) are being heard in the Gujarat High Court tomorrow. This is nothing but a bid to subvert the cause of public justice and ensure that no justice happens in these cases.
We had written to the CBI offering full cooperation. The so called offences relate to documentary evidence. This search is nothing but an attempt to intimidate and humiliate. India should be ashamed that when scams like Vyapam are happening, over 50 persons dying, witnesses in Asaram Bapu case are dying, the CBI is not appealing in critical cases related to crimes by politicians. The agency is being unleashed on human rights defenders standing up for the rights of Survivors of Mass Violence. It is worse than the British Raj. Pathetic.
I repeat Sabrang Communications has broken no law(s).”
Teesta Setalvad’s Mumbai residence (Credit: Times of India)
Statements in support of Setalvad:
** All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM)
AIMMM president Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan said AIMMM considers the raids as a brazen misuse of state power by the BJP government in Gujarat and at the Centre. The move is simple vindictiveness against an activist who bravely and steadfastly stood against the perpetrators of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 and helped the victims in all possible ways.
The civil society should come out in support of Setalvad and other activists who have been fighting for the cause of the minorities and marginalized classes against the brazen, pro-Hindutva and pro-Corporate forces.
** Welfare Party of India:
The Welfare Party of India national president Dr SQR Ilyas said it is nothing but intimidation and witch hunting. This happens despite the intervention of the Supreme Court not to arrest Teesta. The Central government has now “hired” the CBI to pursue its ongoing persecution policy against the social activist who has fought relentlessly for the victims of Gujarat riots. It is an irony that all this happens when people put behind bars for their role in fake encounters, communal riots to the tune of ethnic cleansing, false flag terror blasts like Malegaon, Ajmer, Nanded, Samjauta train etc are one by one being freed on flimsy grounds with overt and covert connivance of investigating agencies and administrative machineries. The Modi government is misusing the CBI for its communal and vindictive agenda of harassing those who fight for justice and law of the land get prevail. It is ache din for criminals and bure din for peaceful protesters.
All democratic and peace loving citizens should rally behind Teesta as she is a symbol and this can happen to anyone opposing the communal fascist agendas of Modi government.
** Civil society activists:
Since the installation of the BJP led government in Delhi in May 2014, the country has witnessed open strenuous official efforts to foist a large variety of charges of financial irregularity on them, to harass them, to tarnish their reputations, and to secure their arrests. Fortunately the interventions of the higher judiciary have protected them so far. However, the latest raids by the CBI into home and offices of Setalvad and others in Mumbai are signs of continuing open misuse of official bodies to harass these human rights defenders.
It is well-known that Setalvad and Anand have been fearless in charging the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently the country’s Prime Minister, with direct criminal culpability for these crimes. For this, they have assisted the widow of a former MP who was slaughtered in the carnage Zakia Jafri to fight a brave court battle in which the first accused is Modi. They are also appealing against court orders to free on bail prominent political leaders of the BJP convicted of the worst massacre in Naroda Patiya, Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi.
What we are witnessing is crude and defiant misuse of official bodies to beat down these human rights defenders so as to silence their voices, break their morale and divert them from their unrelenting battles in defence of justice which charge the country’s current leadership with complicity in hate crimes.
(Above statement endorsed by Ajith Pillai, journalist; Amit Bhaduri, Prof Emeritus, JNU, New Delhi; Aruna Roy, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS); Ashis Nandy, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi; Ayaz Siddiqui Communication engineer; Brinelle D’Souza, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai; Darryl D’Monte, Chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI); Dunu Roy, Engineer, Hazards Centre, Delhi; Ghanshyam Shah, academician, Gujarat; Hanif Lakdawala, Social Activist, Gujarat; Harsh Mander, Aman Biradari; Indira Jaising, Founder, Lawyer’s Collective, Delhi; Irfan Engineer, All India Secular Forum; Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Jyoti Punwani, freelance journalist, Mumbai; Mallika Sarabhai, ARTIST, Gujarat; Myron J Pereira, former director of Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai; Naresh Fernandes, journalist; Naseeruddin Shah, theatre and film actor and director; Ovais Sultan Khan, People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism; Priya Pillai, environmental activist, Greenpeace India; Romila Thapar, Academician; Shabnam Hashmi, social activist, Anhad; Siddharth Varadarajan, journalist, Delhi; Tushar A Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, Maharashtra and Zoya Hasan, academician, JNU, among others.)
**People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS)
These raids are undertaken for purely vindictive reasons given the assurances of complete cooperation and submission of thousands of pages of documents to the CBI. It is by now an open secret that activists working for justice and truth with regard to the pogrom called ‘Gujarat Riots’ have earned the hatred and animosity of the Modi government; which does not hesitate to employ official state power to indulge in a witch-hunt.
It may also be noted that a senior Public Prosecutor, Rohini Salian, has accused the NIA of showing a bias in favour of certain persons accused of terrorist crimes. Furthermore, a Gujarat special judge, Ms Jyotsna Yagnik, stated in May this year that she has received 22 threats since retirement, on account of her role in convicting those responsible for the Naroda Patiya massacre in 2002.
Seen together, in their entirety, the above facts are a cause for grave concern to all Indian citizens. They portend nothing less than an undeclared Emergency. Lovers of democracy should resist the ruthless campaign of intimidation unleashed against Sabrang Communications. PADS demands that the Union Government abandon its hostile and vindictive stance towards human rights defenders and concentrate on upholding the rule of law and providing justice to innocent Indian citizens who have fallen victim to bloodthirsty communal politics.
** Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC):
As in previous attempts at harassing and intimidating Setalvad, the intent is clearly to browbeat her into submission and hamper the crucial work she and her organization are engaged in, in the cause of justice and accountability.
The fact that the BJP governments, both at the state and central level, have resorted to using the state security apparatus to intimidate a tireless worker for justice represents an affront to the constitutional guarantees of equality before the law for all citizens. It is ironical that the BJP had alleged that the CBI was a ‘political tool’ in the hands of the ruling party, when the BJP itself was in the opposition.
In stark contrast to the repressive measures against Setalvad and other human rights activists and whistleblowers, is the reprieve given to several accused in the Gujarat pogroms of 2002, at the behest of the BJP government. In February this year, 70 accused were acquitted by a local court in north Gujarat, while the Gujarat High Court granted bail to convicted mass murderer Maya Kodnani on the pretext that her appeal was pending. The dismal conviction rate in cases connected to the Gujarat pogroms, shows the government’s complete lack of interest in pursuing those that killed and raped with impunity.
The government’s gunning for Teesta Setalvad does not diminish the gravity of the crimes committed by the perpetrators of the Gujarat pogroms of 2002, and the culpability of those in the administration that were complicit in the mass violence.
(Umar Malick, IAMC president and Khalid Ansari, vice president of IAMC)
** Human Rights Defenders Alerts – India (HRDA-India)
This is not the first time the activists working for justice and truth with regard to ‘Gujarat Riots’ have been targeted. Teesta Setalvad herself has been targeted in several other false criminal cases for which she had to seek anticipatory bail from the Supreme Court. It is clearly a part of repeated attempts to discredit human rights defenders and attacks on them.
HRDA believes, Teesta Setalvad has been hounded by the Government of India for her work to seek justice for past 13 years against the architects and perpetrators of the Gujarat riots. These ongoing harassments of Setalvad and her colleagues at Sabrang Trust, Sabrang Communications and Publishing and Citizens for Justice and Peace is a gross tactic and blatant abuse of the State machinery by the Government of India to threaten human rights defenders (HRDs) working on the issues of justice and to ensure that a large part of HRDs time which otherwise would have focused on work related to justice is now spent running from one court to another.
** Shekhar Gupta, senior journalist tweeted:
I’ve had many arguments with @TeestaSetalvad but govt using CBI raids in an FCRA case to crush her is shockingly vindictive & ‘self-defeating’. Raids on @TeestaSetalvad also slap on UPA face. FCRA is an awful law from emergency / foreign hand times which UPA decade made more draconian. Then: CBI was a caged parrot. Now: Bull in a China shop. Can’t say which one is better. Or worse. #DeepState (sic).