Teesta breather

Ahmedabad, July 27: Rights activist Teesta Setalvad, who faces allegations of levelling false charges against some Gujarat riots accused, today got a breather when a sessions court reserved its order till August 2 on her anticipatory bail plea.

This means Gujarat police cannot arrest the Mumbai-based activist in the Naroda Gam riot case till that date.

Eleven Muslim residents were killed by a Hindu mob in 2002 at Naroda Gam, Ahmedabad. The charge against Teesta is that the affidavits her NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, has filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of the victims contain false details of rape and murder.

Some of the witnesses have denied the details in the affidavits in court.

Madina Bibi, a victim and witness, objected to the account of rape in the affidavit. Last year in August, she told the sessions court that she was not raped when her Naroda Gam house was set on fire. The other five witnesses seconded her. This “fabrication” was in the affidavit was done by Teesta Setalvad and her man, Rais Khan Pathan, some of the witnesses told the court.

Teesta’s former aide Pathan, who had been working on the case for the NGO in Gujarat, has said in a statement that she made the affidavits and he played no part in the matter. Pathan, who was sacked from Citizens for Justice and Peace in 2008, has also filed a petition in the sessions court offering to become a witness, which has been rejected.

The sessions court instead ordered the registrar of the city civil court to register an offence against him and others under sections 193 and 200 of IPC for fabricating evidence and making false statements.

Pathan’s offer came after some of the witnesses, during their depositions, disowned certain portions of their affidavits submitted before the Supreme Court. They held Pathan responsible for the fabrication.

Allegations of murder and rape were levelled against some of the accused when the affidavits were filed in the apex court with a prayer to move the trial out of Gujarat.

Advocate Yatin Oza, representing the accused, opposed the anticipatory bail application by Teesta that was filed on Monday. He argued that the “false affidavits she had filed had led to the arrest of 150 people which has serious implications for many people jailed in connection with the case”. Therefore, he said, custodial interrogation of Setalvad was necessary to find out if she had got money from any anti-national elements abroad to create communal disturbance in Ahmedabad.

S.M. Bohra, representing Teesta, cited her credentials — a leading human right activist and journalist who was awarded the Padmshri.

Among the accused of the Naroda Gam case are former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani and former VHP leader Jaideep Patel. Both are out on bail.