US report: Gujarat govt moved against Teesta Setalvad after she sought to indict Modi in 2002 riots

The latest US government's "India 2014 Human Rights Report" has criticized Gujarat government for filing a misappropriation case against well-known human rights activist Teesta Setalvad. This, it notes, was done "after a December 2013 decision by a Gujarat lower court rejecting a protest petition "to force the state to file criminal charges against then-Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and other officials for allegedly failing to stop Hindu reprisals in Gujarat in 2002."
The report states, "On January 5, Gujarat police filed a petition against human rights activists Teesta Setalvad, Javad Anand, Salim Sandhi, Feroz Gulzar Mohammed Pathan, and Tanvir Jafri for allegedly misappropriating funds donated to construct a memorial to the 2002 riots. The petition was filed after residents of the Gulberg Society, a housing complex, claimed that Setalvad misused 1.5 million rupees ($24,000) collected to build a memorial to the 69 persons killed during the 2002 riots."
Pointing out that Setalvad, one of the accused, is the founder of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), "a Mumbai-based organization responsible for numerous cases against alleged perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat violence", the report points to how, throughout 2014, the state government "opposed activists’ anticipatory bail applications submitted to Gujarat and Mumbai courts in addition to the Indian Supreme Court."
Pointing to harassment, the report says, "On December 5, the Gujarat High Court required Setalvad and Anand to appear before their embezzlement case’s investigating officer on December 15 and 16 and again on January 1 and 2, 2015", the report says.

The report quotes activists' claim to say that "the case was malicious and in retaliation for their work on behalf of the victims in the Gujarat cases." Worse, it adds, "The state government froze CJP’s bank accounts on January 21 pending the investigation; the accounts remained frozen at the end of the year."
The report comes at a time when the Modi government is learnt to have decided that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should probe into another "misappropriation" case involving Setalvad -- the alleged transfer of funds by the Ford Foundation to the Sabrang Communication and Publishing Pvt Limited (SCPPL), which she heads.
Giving a picture of continued state indifference towards the 2002 riot victims, the report quotes a recent Centre for Social Justice, Ahmedabad, study which found that more than a decade later there are "3,964 internally displaced Muslim families in 86 settlements in Gujarat."
It adds, "The study stated that 30 percent of the Internally Diplaced Persons (IDPs) had not received any government assistance and the rest had been inadequately compensated."

It further says, "The Gujarat government, which initially claimed there were no IDPs, continued to hold back compensation, although the central government directed it to provide compensation. There were reports the state government denied social welfare benefits to registered IDPs. Camps lacked basic amenities such as drinking water, power, sanitation, health care, and education."
The report also quotes civil society activists for continuing "to express concern about the Gujarat government’s failure to hold accountable those responsible for the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 persons, the majority of whom were Muslim."
It notes that that the Gujarat government-appointed the Nanavati-Mehta Commission, appointed to investigate the violence in 2002, completed its report in November and handed it over to the state government. Yet, "The state government did not release the report publicly."

Meanwhile, the report regrets, "former state minister Maya Kodnani, who had been sentenced in 2012 to a 28-year prison term for her involvement in the violence, was released in July after a court suspended her sentence for health reasons."

Comments

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

A sector under siege? War and real estate: Navigating uncertainty in India's expanding market

I was a little surprised when I received an email alert from a top real estate consultant, Anarock Group , titled "Exploring War’s Effects on Indian Real Estate—When Conflict Meets Concrete," authored by its regional director and head of research, Dr. Prashant Thakur. I had thought that the business would wholeheartedly support what is considered a strong response to the dastardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor.

Search This Blog