‘You Failed to Protect Sanjiv’: Shweta Bhatt Slams IPS Association
A Gujarat court sentenced sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case.
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Hours after a court in Gujarat sentenced sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to life imprisonment in a custodial death case dating back to 1990, on Thursday, 20 June, his wife Shweta Bhatt said that he is facing punishment for a “crime he did not commit.”
"The injustice is very apparent. We will fight against this injustice. But I will be able to make further comments only after consulting my lawyers," said Shweta, who contested the 2012 Gujarat Assembly election against Modi from Maninagar in Ahmedabad, told PTI.
In a statement, she said that her husband has done “nothing but serve his country and his people diligently.”
Shweta also slammed the IPS Association for not standing by and failing to protect her husband. Shweta questioned the association for its silence and and said that Sanjiv was “fighting his battle” against the government alone.
She added that the country was going through “an extremely bad phase” but that they will continue fighting.
The Gujarat-cadre officer was suspended from the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 2011 and sacked by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in August, 2015 on the ground of "unauthorised absence from service".
On Thursday, the Jamnagar-based court of sessions judge D M Vyas convicted Bhatt and police constable Pravinsinh Zala under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced them to life in jail in the 29-year-old custodial death case.
Five others – sub-inspectors Dipak Shah and Sailesh Pandya and constables Pravinsinh Jadeja, Anopsinh Jethva and Keshubha Jadeja – were sentenced to two years in jail for custodial torture.
On 30 October 1990, Bhatt, then an additional superintendent of police, had detained around 150 people following a communal riot in Jamjodhpur town of Jamnagar. The riot broke out after a bandh call against the halting of BJP leader L K Advani's rath-yatra agitation for a Ram temple in Ayodhya.
One of those detained, Prabhudas Vaishnani, died in a hospital after his release.
His brother Amrutbhai lodged a complaint alleging that Bhatt and other police officials tortured Vaishnani in custody, causing his death.
Read Shweta’s full statement here:
The sessions court today sentenced Sanjiv to Life Imprisonment for a crime he did not commit. To all of you who have stood by Sanjiv as his pillar of support - Your words of support are comforting and encouraging, but words without action will amount to nothing. Your support will mean nothing if you let such travesty of justice happen to a man who has done nothing but serve his country and his people diligently.
To the IPS association - today one of your very own has been vindictively persecuted for being a true IPS officer. You didn’t stand by him, you didn’t protect him … he keeps fighting his battle against this vindictive government, the question is till what end are you prepared to remain as silent spectators?
We as a nation are going through an extremely dark phase. We shall continue fighting till our last breath, the only thing remaining to see is whether we will be fighting a lone fight? or will the people of this sovereign democracy fight for a man who never stopped fighting for them.
The following is the press release detailing the particulars of this case and the judicial miscarriage we have been subjected to. Attached are copies of Sanjiv’s Further Statement and the Forensic Medico-Legal Expert’s Opinion.
India, Its time to wake up. Today it is us, tomorrow it can be you.
God bless
#Timeforactionsnotwords #Enoughisenough #JusticeforSanjivBhatt
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