Even after the Supreme-Court-appointed Special Investigation Team gave a clean chit to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in its report filed in the magisterial court, the suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has claimed that documents submitted by him provided “incriminating evidence” against Mr. Modi and others for their alleged involvement in the 2002 communal riots.
In a letter sent on Saturday to the G.T.-Nanavati-Akshay-Mehta judicial inquiry commission probing into the Godhra train carnage and the post-Godhra communal riots in the State, Mr. Bhatt requested the panel to issue an immediate order to the State government to take the relevant documents under its possession for safekeeping.
Pointing out that he had made this request many times, Mr. Bhatt said he suspected “very crucial and relevant records” had been “deviously suppressed or destroyed by the State government as well as the SIT [to shield] ... powerful persons from legal punishment by ensuring that crucial and relevant documents are not brought before the court of law”.
‘Dubious role'
Mr. Bhatt said the original records of the copies submitted by him before the commission and the SIT were available with the offices of the State Director-General of Police and the Intelligence Branch, and they “clearly reveal the dubious role and criminal conduct” of the Chief Minister, some of his Ministers, police officers and others.
The delay on the part of the commission in requisitioning or ordering the discovery and production of the crucial documents had “inadvertently or otherwise facilitated the destruction of incriminating evidence against the Chief Minister and others,” he said.
