Ahmedabad, May 29: Even as the Nanavati-Mehta Commission will decide on June 8 whether IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt should be cross-examined by different parties, noted danseuse and activist Mallika Sarabhai has filed an application before the commission, requesting that she be allowed to question Bhatt and former DGP RB Sreekumar about Bhatt’s statement that her PIL filed in Supreme Court in 2002 was “undermined by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi”.
During his deposition before the commission on Monday last, Bhatt had also stated that Sreekumar could give some information on this issue.
Sarabhai filed the application soon after, seeking to question them further on what the CM did to her petition and several other such petitions demanding probe into the riots. On March 7, 2002, Sarabhai was the first to file a PIL seeking compensation, rehabilitation and new housing for the affected and the role of the government and police in the post-Godhra riots.
“I am deeply disturbed after hearing this. These are very severe allegations (against the CM) and it has huge repercussions. I want it to be investigated thoroughly. If he did this to my application, he could have done several other things in other ongoing investigations. Moreover, I want to know what this secret fund is being referred to,” she said.
The danseuse, who has been on the warpath with Modi government ever since she filed the PIL in SC, exclaims that she faced a lot of harassment after filing the petition.
“I want the full written certified deposition of Bhatt and Sreekumar,” she added.
After the riots broke out all over the state, several petitions by activists and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) were filed before the Supreme Court to investigate the riots and punish the guilty.
A year later, the applicants were asked if their petitions could be clubbed, and all except one agreed. It was on the basis of these petitions that the Nanavati-Shah Commission was formed by the state government to inquire into the post-Godhra riots.
Source: dailybhaskar