The Congress on Saturday strongly refuted the allegations against veteran party leader Ahmed Patel that he had hatched a conspiracy to destabilise the Gujarat government, led by then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, after the 2002 riots.
While opposing the bail application of activist Teesta Setalvad, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Gujarat police on Friday contended before the court that she was a part of a “larger conspiracy” that was carried out at the behest of Ahmed Patel to falsely implicate people in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Veteran Congress leader Ahmed Patel died in 2020 following Covid-19 complications.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress in its statement said the allegations against Ahmed Patel were a “part of the Prime Minister’s systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002.”
“The Prime Minister’s political vendetta machine clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries,” the statement said.
“Giving judgment through press, in an ongoing judicial process, through puppet investigative agencies who trumpet wild allegations as supposed findings, has been the hallmark of the Modi-Shah duo’s tactics for years. This is nothing but another example of the same, with the added object of vilifying a deceased person since he is obviously unable and unavailable to refute such brazen lies,” it added.
Statement Issued by @Jairam_Ramesh , General Secretary In- Charge, Communications, AICC pic.twitter.com/vZo55UcDcN
— Congress (@INCIndia) July 16, 2022
Citing statements of a witness, the SIT in its affidavit said that Teesta Setalvad had received Rs 30 lakh after post-Godhra riots in 2002 at the behest of Ahmed Patel.
Setalvad used to meet the leaders of a “prominent national party in power at that time in Delhi to implicate names of senior leaders of the BJP government in riot cases,” the SIT further claimed.
Setalvad has been arrested, along with former IPS officers RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt, for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in Gujarat riots cases.
The arrests were made last month after the Supreme Court upheld the clean chit given to then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in the Gujarat riots case
With inputs from NDTV
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