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Tuesday 22 May 2012

The seculars’ poster boy


Last Updated : 22 May 2012 06:17:35 AM IST


Syed Sohrabuddin, who was killed along with his wife in a despicable fake encounter in Gujarat, was for long Indian seculars’ poster boy. In the 2007 Gujarat Assembly polls, Sonia Gandhi first put him on the Congress election poster and called Narendra Modi “merchant of death”. But that didn’t fetch votes. But, being a Muslim killed by Modi’s policemen, Sohrabuddin predictably emerged at the national level as the poster boy of secularism.
True that out of the 440 fake encounter deaths under the National Human Rights Commission’s scan in 2006, Gujarat accounted for just four. Yet, thanks to the secular tag to Sohrabuddin killing, it was Gujarat’s four encounters, not UP’s 231, nor Maharashtra’s 33 or AP’s 22 or Assam’s 12, that attracted the seculars, and also the judiciary. And to continue this secular tag on, the CBI, which probed Sohrab’s case, suppressed the vital fact that the BJP(read ‘communal’) governments in Gujarat and Rajasthan and the Congress (read ‘secular’) government in Andhra Pradesh were partners in the killing. Would they join without central intelligence intermediation? But why Shorab as target?
 It is established that out of the arms shipped by Dawood Ibrahim to blast and kill 300 plus in Mumbai in 1993, Abdul Latif, a D-gang member in Gujarat, had kept buried 24 AK-47s, 27 grenades, 5,250 cartridges, and 81 magazines in the backyard of Sohrab’s home in Jharnea village in Madhya Pradesh. Sohrab thus had direct nexus with terror. Besides he had some 21 serious crime cases against him.
Therefore, search for a better secular icon to target Modi was always on. Sanjiv Bhatt, a Gujarat police official, suddenly claimed that cap. First, to foist a criminal case on Modi, Bhatt came out in 2011 asserting that Narendra Modi told the officials nine years earlier,  to “allow Hindus to give vent to their anger” after Godhra carnage.
Later, when the Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by  the Supreme Court found his assertion a blatant lie, Bhatt charged that R K Raghavan, the SIT head and former police official with exceptional integrity, was out to protect Modi. More, as a serving police official in Gujarat, he called Modi “a criminal”.
Is he precisely not the one the seculars were longing for?
Look at the past life of this secular avatar. See what he did in 1996, within eight years of joining the IPS in 1988. He got planted 1 kg of narcotics in a hotel room in Palanpur in Gujarat and forged records to show that Sumer Singh Rajpurohit, a lawyer from Pali in Rajasthan, was staying in that room. That was to fix Sumer Singh in narcotics offence! This real life drama climaxes thus.
Bhatt got Sumer Singh abducted at midnight, brought to Palanpur, thrown into the hotel room with narcotics kept ready to fix him, and arrested. For what? That Sumer Singh must forthwith hand back the property he was occupying on lease from a relative of R R Jain (a judge in Gujarat High Court then).
Terrified, Sumer Singh succumbed and Sanjiv Bhatt immediately set Sumer Singh free by stunningly lying to the court that Sumer Singh could not be identified in the test identification parade! Sumer Singh went back to Rajasthan, filed criminal cases against Sanjiv Bhatt and R R Jain. The two petitioned to the Supreme Court to have the case transferred out of Rajasthan. It was rejected. Then the Gujarat government petitioned to the Rajasthan High Court to quash the case. That too was dismissed.
The matter moved to the Supreme Court which has stayed the criminal case. Later, the Vigilance Commission, Gujarat State, wrote to the Modi government in July 2002, again in October 2006 that, as charges against Bhatt were very serious, he be suspended. But the Modi government did not — yes did not — suspend Bhatt! Story continues. In June 1996 itself the Secretary of Pali Bar Association in Rajasthan had complained to the NHRC about Sanjiv Bhatt’s criminality. And 14 years later, in September 2010, the Commission found the complaint valid and ordered a cash relief of `1 lakh to Sumer Singh. The Gujarat government paid the fine and asked Bhatt to pay. This was not the end of his exploits.
Even within two years of his joining the IPS, Bhatt showed his potential. When handling Bharat Bandh in 1990, he ordered a curfew for three days, excessively invoked TADA, and used force that smashed the kidneys of two persons, one of whom died later.
This led to a charge of murder against him, still pending. More. Bhatt was found keeping 22 constables to do his personal errands at his residence in Rajkot in 1997.
In 1999, finding that number inadequate, he increased the orderlies to 36 to serve him at his home at Banaskantha — eight constables plus three for attending telephones, three for picket duties, four for guard duties, twelve for striking force and three for gardening and three commandos! Rightly, he was charge-sheeted for abuse of power. And more. To help a litigant in a land-grab case, Bhatt fixed the other litigant under prohibition law. Still more. Inquiries are on against him for irregularities in police recruitment in May 1996; for misuse of official resources; for issuing more weapons than he was authorised; and for taking away police weapons unrecorded. But, the entire crime record of this secular icon remains hidden. Why?
 Sanjiv Bhatt claimed in 2011, nine years after the riots, that he was present at the meeting at Modi’s home on February 27, 2002, where, he asserted, Modi told his officials to ‘allow the Hindus to vent their anger’. All those in the meeting have told the SIT unanimously that Bhatt was not present.
Still, Bhatt pressurised a police constable to sign an affidavit to say he was indeed in the meeting, but it turned out that, on the fateful day, the constable was away to Mumbai with his family! No one ever asked him why did he wait that long to tell a vital “truth”.
Or why was he closely working with Congress leaders and NGOs who were out to get Narendra Modi’s scalp.  After studying the e-mails and calls that Bhatt had been exchanging with ‘secular’ NGOs and Congress leaders, the Supreme Court appointed SIT found that “vested interests” — Bhatt, NGOs and Congressmen — were “trying to use the Supreme Court/SIT” for settling their scores. The SIT finally concluded that Sanjiv Bhatt was “colluding with vested interests” to see that “some kind of charge-sheet is filed against” Modi. But is that precisely not why Sanjiv Bhatt is now the celebrated poster boy of seculars?
(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own)
S Gurumurthy is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues.
E-mail:comment@gurumurthy.net



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