Sanjiv Bhatt out on bail

Seventeen days after he was arrested for trying to prove CM Narendra Modi’s bias during the 2002 Gujarat riots, suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt got bail from an Ahmedabad court on Monday. Bhatt was jailed for allegedly fabricating evidence to show that he was present at the crucial meeting held at Modi’s home on February 27, 2002 during which Modi allegedly told top cops to go easy on rioters. Sessions judge V K Vyas gave Bhatt bail on condition that he would not contact or intimidate witnesses in the case and that he would not leave the country without the court’s permission. K D Pant, a constable, had filed an FIR accusing Bhatt of threatening him and forcing him to file a fake affidavit stating he had taken Bhatt to the CM’s bungalow on February 27, 2002. The cop was arrested on September 30. However, the judge doubted the veracity of the FIR because of Pant’s flip-flops and the fact that the complaint was registered five days after he was allegedly forced to sign the affidavit. The judge demolished many of the allegations against Bhatt, including that of illegally detaining Pant. The judge observed Pant had many opportunities to escape, but did not. The court also rejected Pant’s contention that the affidavit’s draft had been prepared beforehand at advocate V H Kanara’s office and he just had to sign it. Pant has claimed he was with Bhatt from around 12.30am till around 3am on the day the affidavit was prepared. “Pant has studied up to the second year in a bachelor of business administration course in English. He is a senior policeman working with the intelligence branch for a long time. It is prima facie not believable that he signed the affidavit under pressure from a suspended officer,” the judge noted