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

Gujarat No 1 here too? Cops justify torture: 'Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis naturally prone to crimes'

A new report, "Status of Policing in India Report 2025: Police Torture and (Un)Accountability", states that Gujarat tops the list of 16 states and one Union Territory, with 63% of its police personnel "strongly endorsing" torture. Furthermore, 49% of Gujarat’s police personnel were found to have what the report calls a "high propensity" for torture, considering it "necessary and acceptable" for obtaining information across various crime categories—second only to Jharkhand (50%). In sharp contrast, Kerala has the lowest percentage of police personnel "justifying" torture (3%) and the lowest "high propensity" for violence (1%).

Will Trump govt use US religious freedom report to further pressure India into submission?

Already under pressure from the Trump administration, which has reportedly asked India—successfully, some would say—to remove high tariffs on American products, there is reason to wonder whether Washington might use the recommendations of the latest United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Annual Report to further act against the Government of India.

A traditional Marxian view? Like N-weapons, AI poses 'existential threat' to human civilization

The other day, I was talking with YS Gill , whom I have known as an incisive analyst since my youth, when he, like me, was associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI). A passionate science activist committed to creating awareness of scientific thinking, he told me about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it would lead to mass unemployment. Predicting that AI would replace human intervention in India’s call centers, he estimated that about 70 lakh people would be rendered jobless.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's hype with eye on UP polls: Keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

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.

Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

Martyrs’ Day at Sanand: Remembering Vinod Kinariwala amidst politics of remembrance

I was urged by a close relative, considered across my family as a binding force, to attend a grand ceremony on Martyrs' Day, March 23, along with four other relatives. The event, called Veeranjali (homage to martyrs), was to be held in an open space near Sanand town, about 15 kilometers from Ahmedabad. Martyrs' Day has been observed across India since independence, as it was on this day in 1931 that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were executed.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

Search This Blog