Leading Indian American Organizations, Activists Urge Indian Supreme Court to Give Bail to Sanjiv Bhatt
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Adam Rizvi, NJ. TIO: The entire recording of #FreeSanjivBhatt Press Conference on Jan 18, 2021 â MLK Jr. Day â co-hosted by Hindus for Human Rights and Indian American Muslim Council. A press conference on the unjust arrest of former IPS officer and whistleblower Sanjiv Bhatt, ahead of his bail hearing in the Supreme Court of India on Jan 22, 2021.
Leading civil rights activists and organizations from India and the US Monday urged Indiaâs Supreme Court to give bail to former police officer Sanjiv Bhatt, saying his conviction in a murder case was wrong and was based on fraudulent evidence, and that he had been targeted only because of his allegation that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been complicit in the Hindu extremist violence against Muslims in Gujarat state in 2002.

At a virtual press conference organized by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding Indiaâs pluralist and tolerant ethos, and Hindus for Human Rights, which is committed to the ideals of multi-religious pluralism in the United States, India and beyond, several speakers criticized Mr. Bhattâs conviction and said that it would not hold up under judicial scrutiny. They urged the Supreme Court to set him free now.
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The Supreme Court of India has scheduled a bail hearing for Mr. Bhatt on January 22. Under Indian law, courts can grant bail to those convicted of various crimes, including murder, pending their appeal at higher courts. Mr. Bhatt was convicted in June 2019 for the death of a man in 1990. His defense was not allowed to cross-examine prosecution witnesses during the brief trial, nor was it allowed to present its own witnesses or submit evidence. Indiaâs human rights groups have called it a sham trial.

Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, a former Undersecretary General at the United Nations, said he was âoutraged by the injustice meted outâ to Mr. Bhatt, whose âconscientious service to societyâ and âindomitable capacity for speaking truth to powerâ had put him in jail.
âSanjivâs case is a reflection of the grim times that we live in, where constitutional values and fundamental privileges that have been granted by the constitution to all Indians appear in many cases to be diluted and in many cases perhaps even supplanted by illiberal forces,â Dr. Tharoor said. âAll Indians with a conscience like Sanjiv Bhattâs must stand up and fight back against such challenges that threaten to undermine the very foundation of our republic.â
Renowned documentary filmmaker and human rights defender Anand Patwardhan said Mr. Bhatt had been jailed âfor no other reason than the fact that he opposed the massacre in 2002â and spoke against it. Mr. Patwardhan said the civil society âshould build a movement for Mr. Bhattâs release.â
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Human rights activist, classical dancer, and actor @Mallika Sarabhai said there was a âdefinite agendaâ not only in Mr. Bhattâs case but also if other critics of the Modi government. âIf anyone speaks against the government or asks a question, which is a fundamental right of our democracy, they are somehow punished. Raids are carried out against them, false cases are brought up, fraudulent charges are made, and they are silenced,â Ms. Sarabhai said.

âI hope that today we will be able to appeal to the better sense of our great courts to say what is being done to Sanjiv is wrong and needs to be corrected immediately,â she said. âVindictiveness should find no place in our courts or in any of the decisions taken. It is a sign of weakness and it is a sign of fear. And our courts can neither be weak nor fearful. I hope that our appeal will see that Sanjiv gets a fair trial and that this case is dismissed as the frivolous case that it is.â
She said she was âdeeply worriedâ as Indiaâs âdependableâ institutions such as the Supreme Court had âkeeled over to the powers that be.â The Supreme Court was âtoday taking cases which are liked by the government on an urgent basis; and other cases which are extremely important and involve thousands of people have been left to stew,â she said. Dozens of human rights fighters, educators, and writers were in jail without bail, âwithout even the slightest courtesy for their age of any other infirmity.â
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Gandhian activist and Magsaysay Award winner #SandeepPandey said Mr. Bhatt was the âmost courageousâ of all police officers as he filed an affidavit stating that Narendra Modi had âchaired a meeting in which the police officers were told to go soft on the Hindutva brigade which was rampaging against the Muslims.â Mr. Pandey said that âmanipulation of casesâ was a âcommon storyâ in the Modi government.

Mr. Pandey cited the case of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath, who had â16 cases against him, including a case of murder and inciting riot,” but the cases were withdrawn later. âThey manipulate cases so that either the witnesses are threatened or the people who have filed the cases are threatened to withdraw the cases and the judges are influenced so that the people who have committed the crimes are not convicted.â
If Mr. Bhattâs affidavit were âtaken seriously by the court,â proceedings will begin against Mr. Modi âand obviously that cannot happen because he is now Prime Minister. Sanjiv is paying a price for what he did and the people who are in power are in a situation right now to be able to manipulate things, so that they can get away with their crimes. Everyone knows about it.â
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The crimes committed by Mr. Modi, Indiaâs home minister Amit Shah, and Mr. Adityanath were âwell knownâ but because they are in power they can âevade actionâ against themselves.
Renowned activist S. R. Darapuri, IPSÂ who is a former Inspector-General of Police in Uttar Pradesh, said he could relate to Mr. Bhattâs predicament as they were both âupright and righteousâ police officers who had been âat the receiving end of State oppression.â

Mr. Bhatt was ânot involved in any way in the case in which he has been falsely implicated. He has been prosecuted and convicted merely because he dared to expose the involvement of the then Chief Minister of Gujarat in the 2002 pogrom,â Mr. Darapuri said. Mr. Bhattâs situation is ânot unusualâ as it has become the âunavoidable fate of those who dare to question the State.â
âA large number of human rights activists and other prominent personalities who have dedicated their lives to the social cause are facing the same consequences,â said Mr. Darapuri, who was arrested in Uttar Pradesh last year for opposing the anti-Muslim Citizenship (Amendment) Act. said. âUnfortunately, our criminal justice system has been subverted to serve the interest of those in power. The world âmust recognize the impending danger of the onslaught of fascism in India,â he added.
Womenâs rights activist Arundhati Dhuru said even thirty years ago in his early career Mr. Bhatt ânever used the power of his baton or firearms, but he always stood by the side of the people to fightâ against oppression. âThis is a testing time for the honorable Supreme Court of India to uphold the same constitution by the rule of law, and take out all the charges and release [Mr. Bhatt] unconditionally.â
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Saurin Shah, an Ahmedabad-based lawyer who defended Mr. Bhatt at his flawed trial, gave a detailed chronology of the case. In October 1990, Mr. Bhatt was posted at Jamnagar, Gujarat, when local police arrested 133 rioters, one of whom died 18 days after release. Importantly, none of the 133 people, including the person who died later at a private hospital, had made any allegations of police torture or brutality, even when they met a magistrate. The medical record at the jail where the rioters were imprisoned does not mention any injuries to anyone.
The alleged murder victim, Prabhudas, was twice examined by the jail doctor and at the local government hospital, and none recorded any complaint of torture or injuries.

Commending Mr. Bhatt as a âbrave officerâ who âspoke truth to power,â Raju Rajagopal, co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, recalled that Mr. Bhatt had witnessed the âfateful decisionâ by Mr. Modi, who was at that time Gujaratâs chief minister, that the law enforcement machinery shall stand down to give Hindu nationalist organizations free rein to attack Muslims. Mr. Bhatt had been âincessantly hounded by the authorities since that time,â Rajagopal said.
âIn 2018, he was interrogated on a decades-old case, was tried on completely bogus charges without any opportunity for the defense to call their witnesses, and was put away for life.â
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Rasheed Ahmed, Executive Director of the Indian American Muslim Council, said the Indian government must stop âpolitically managing Mr. Sanjiv Bhatâs case and let the law take its course under the supervision of independent judges, not judges who are either scared of government or have themselves becomes political.â
âThere is no ambiguity that Mr. Sanjiv Bhattâs conviction and incarceration are politically motivated and that the charges against him are baseless,â Mr. Ahmed said. âThe courts clearly know it but the political masters want him silenced so that their own crimes stay in the dark rooms out of the public eye.â
Mr. Ahmed said that Mr. Bhatt deserved a âfair trial and an âindependent judiciaryâ.
Curated By Humra Kidwai