Teesta Setalvad receives ₹30 lakh from Ahmed Patel to destabilise Gujarat govt, says SIT

|HT|

Activist Teesta Setalvad was enacting a larger conspiracy to destabilise an elected Gujarat government soon after a train in Godhra was set in fire in 2002, and had received financial assistance from a top leader of a rival political party, the state government’s special investigation team (SIT) has said. In its affidavit in the city civil sessions court on Friday, challenging Setalvad’s bail plea, the SIT – formed to probe Setalvad along with R B Sreekumar, then ADGP, Armed Unit, for criminal conspiracy and forgery – cited statements of a witness and said the conspiracy was carried out at the behest of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel. “The statements of these two witnesses establish that the conspiracy was enacted by Setalvad along with other accused persons, at the behest of Late Shri Ahmed Patel, the then Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha and political advisor to the President of the Indian National Congress,” the affidavit said. Setalvad held meetings with Patel and also received ₹5 lakh at the first instance from a witness on the instructions of the Congress leader, the committee said. She received ₹25 lakh more two days later, again at the behest of Patel, the SIT said.

Patel succumbed to Covid-19 in November 2020.

The cash money given to the activist was not part of any relief-related corpus and the presence of several political leaders during the period of this meeting is corroborated by the material collected in the investigation, the SIT said. The committee said that Setalvad also met former IPS officers R B Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt who were not involved in any relief work in their official capacity or positions. Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said he was not fully aware of the contents of the affidavit. “We will be able to comment only after fully studying the matter,” he said.A Congress leader in Delhi, who did not wish to be named, said: “Dead people don’t tell tales.”

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