Teesta, Sreekumar deny charges of anti-govt plot

AHMEDABAD: Activist Teesta Setalvad, former IPS officers RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt on Monday denied police charges of being a partof a plot to topple the Gujarat government after the 2002 riots along with Congress’s Ahmed Patel.

Setalvad also denied tampering with the affidavit during her bail plea hearing at the Ahmedabad Sessions Court, which will resume hearings on July 20. Setalvad told the court that the allegations leveled against her were completely baseless. “The allegation made against me for taking money is false,” she told the court.

Sreekumar said, “The accusations that have been made against me are wrong.” On Friday, the Special investigation team (SIT) filed an affidavit challenging the bail applications of the three. The SIT had claimed that Setalvad received Rs 30 lakh from a political party for destabilising the elected government of Gujarat after the 2002 communal riots.

The SIT had said: “… the political objective of the applicant while enacting this larger conspiracy, was dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government in Gujarat by hook or by crook, for which the applicant had obtained illegal financial and other benefits and rewards from the rival political party in lieu of her attempts to wrongly implicate and prosecute various authorities and other innocent persons in the State of Gujarat, including the then Chief Minister.”