Embezzlement case: Teesta Setalvad claims she is victim of vendetta; activist moves SC

Social activist Teesta Setalvad on Thursday claimed she was being implicated for espousing the cause of the 2002 Gujarat riot victims, soon after Supreme Court stayed her possible arrest in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum at Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg Society. Noting that it was a case of a “political vendetta” by the perpetrators of the riots, she said “attempts are being made constantly by the communal political outfits and the (Gujarat) state machinery to curtail the movement and freedom of the petitioners and also to arrest their activities, so as to cynically reverse the successes of the difficult struggle for reparation and justice.” [caption id=“attachment_2096003” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Social activist Teesta Setalvad. AFP[/caption] Setalvad said this in her appeal before the apex court shortly after Gujarat High Court rejected her and her husband Javed Anand’s anticipatory bail plea earlier on Thursday. She claimed that the FIR against her and her husband has been filed allegedly at the behest of a political party and was based on wrong assumptions. She contended that they have been implicated in the case and were victims of political vendetta, claiming they were being targeted by the perpetrators of the riots. Contending that the denial of anticipatory bail by the High Court was unsustainable and contrary to law laid down by the apex court, the petition said that “animosity and the revengeful nature of the particular fraction has gone to the extent of lodging false cases in Gujarat in order to harass the petitioners”. “The petitioners are responsible and respected citizens of this country…There is no likelihood of not cooperating with the law enforcement agencies and hence custodial interrogation is not required,” the petition filed through advocate Aparna Bhatt said. The petition said that in order to commemorate the loss of the people in Gulbarg Society, Setalvad and the members of the Society were considering setting up a museum on the land of the Society. “However, the idea could not be materialised in view of the escalating price of the land. The whole process was totally transparent and at no point of time did the petitioners take or demand any money or made any false promises,” she said. On February 28, 2002, in the aftermath of the Godhra train burning incident, armed rioters had swooped on the Gulbarg society and killed 69 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. Setalvad’s petition came in the backdrop of the High Court rejecting their bail pleas and observing that Setalvad was not cooperating in the probe and “they cannot be armoured with full fledged anticipatory bail when applicant did not cooperate with the investigation.” Setalvad and her husband have been booked by the Crime Branch of Gujarat Police on charges of cheating, breach of trust and under the IT Act, in a matter relating to the construction of ‘Museum of Resistance’ in the Gulbarg society in Ahmedabad which was hit by communal riot in 2002. PTI