Amidst the ongoing ‘The Kashmir Files’ movie issue, several far-left social media trolls and the Congress party supporters claimed in March 2022 that the disgraced cop Sanjiv Bhatt, who is in jail, also is a Kashmiri Pandit. Firstly this is absolutely wrong on facts, he is not. And secondly, even if he was, that makes no difference to the fact that he is and has been found guilty of criminal offences by the court, and his claims debunked by the SIT, which is now proven yet again by the recent judgement dismissing the Zakia Jafri petition by Supreme Court.
It is pertinent to note that the Supreme Court specifically said that Zakia Jafri was tutored and her claims do not hold water. In that backdrop, it is important to remember the crimes of Sanjiv Bhatt and how he was turned into a hero for lying about Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots, so much so, that his own crimes and his reasons for going after Modi were brushed under the rug by sympathetic media.
After his conviction in one case in June 2019, more lies were spread by the self-proclaimed ‘liberals’, and media outlets like BBC, who tried to imply that the reason for his conviction was the anti-Modi stance taken by him and not this 1990 case. This included Manu Joseph, a former contributor at Outlook weekly, who had initially made the same false charge which was later made by Sanjiv Bhatt, on Narendra Modi giving ‘orders to the police to allow Hindus to riot the next day’ in a crucial meeting on 27 Feb 2002 held at CM’s Bungalow, Gandhinagar in weekly Outlook dated 3 June 2002. Manu Joseph said: “I also believe that he is in jail right now only because he tried to destroy Modi.” [Manu Joseph’s report of Outlook 3 June 2002 was as false as Sanjiv Bhatt’s claims, and he too can be prosecuted for it. To know the full truth of it, and the lies of Joseph in Outlook, click here.]
Let us see some more reasons why Sanjiv Bhatt was prompted to speak against Narendra Modi. The final SIT report says on pp 48-51:
“(Page 48) …a communication was sent to the (Gujarat) Government to make available the details of all complaints/ pending inquiries/ prosecutions/ departmental proceedings etc against Shri Sanjiv Bhatt. A detailed reply has been received from the Govt. of Gujarat which shows that Shri Sanjiv Bhatt has faced a number of departmental inquiries and he was granted three promotions of Junior Administrative Grade, Selection Grade and DIG Grade on one day i.e. 21-09-2007 after dropping of three departmental inquiries pending against him vide orders dated 06-08-2005, 03-09-2005 and 24-07-2006. Shri Sanjiv Bhatt, who is eligible for the IGP grade has not been promoted because of the departmental inquiries and criminal cases pending against him. A chargesheet served upon him on 29-12-2010, for irregularities in police recruitment under his Chairmanship as SP Banaskantha, is still pending.
“While handling a law and order situation during his posting as ASP Jamnagar in the year 1990, Shri Sanjiv Bhatt committed atrocities on peaceful and innocent villagers belonging to a particular community at a place called Jam Jodhpur. In the beatings by police, one person was killed. The victims included a pregnant woman, two assistant engineers of the Irrigation department and one Circle officer of the Revenue Department. Shri Bhatt applied provisions of the draconian law TADA against innocent persons and arrested 140 individuals under this Act. Due to public pressure, the Government [Our comment: At that time, it was Congress ruling Gujarat. Janata Dal (70 MLAs) and BJP (67 MLAs) combine ruled Gujarat from 4 March 1990 to October 1990, but from 25 October 1990 it was again Congress rule when Janata Dal merged with Congress (33 MLAs out of a total 182) till 13 March 1995] got an inquiry conducted by a retired Judicial Officer into the incident and Shri Bhatt was found guilty of: (a) misuse of TADA (b) police atrocities (c) unnecessary (page 49 now) imposition of curfew for 70 hours leading to hardship and harassment to the people.
“The Criminal case of death of a person due to police atrocities in the incident was investigated by State CID (Crime) against Shri Sanjiv Bhatt and others. After completion of the investigation, the IO sought prosecution sanction from the Government u/s 197 Cr. PC, which was declined and therefore, a closure report was filed in the competent court. However, the Court rejected the closure report on 20.12.1995 and took cognizance. The State Government filed a Criminal Revision Application in the Sessions Court, which was rejected.
The case u/s 302,323, 506(1), 114 of IPC has now been committed to Sessions Court, Jamnagar and is presently pending with the Fast Track Court, Khambhalia for framing of charges against Shri Sanjiv Bhatt and others.
Significantly, Gujarat High Court awarded a compensation of Rs. 1,50,000/- to the victim who had died due to police atrocities in the above case.
“Another criminal complaint was filed against Shri Sanjiv Bhatt, while he was posted as SP, Banaskantha District in 1996 by Shri Sumersingh Rajpurohit, an Advocate practising at Pali, Rajasthan and a criminal case was registered against Shri Sanjiv Bhatt & others vide FIR No. 403/96 dtd. 18/11/1996 u/s 120B, 195, 196, 342, 347, 357, 365, 388, 458, 482 IPC and Sec. 58(1) & 58 (2) r/w Sec. 37 of NDPS Act in the court of Spl. Judge, NDPS Act, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The allegations, in brief, are that the complainant Advocate was occupying a property as a tenant in Pali (Rajasthan), which was owned by a lady, who happened to be a sister of Shri R.R. Jain, a sitting Judge of Gujarat High Court. As per the said criminal [page 50 now] complaint, Shri Sanjiv Bhatt and his subordinate police officers allegedly planted 1 ½ kg of Narcotic drug in one room in a hotel at Palanpur, Gujarat, which was shown as occupied by the said complainant, though he was at Pali (Rajasthan) at that time. The said Advocate was abducted at midnight on the instructions of Shri Sanjiv Bhatt by his subordinate Police officers of Gujarat police, who went from Palanpur, Gujarat to Pali (Rajasthan) to abduct him. The said advocate was brought to Palanpur, Gujarat and pressurized by Shri Sanjiv Bhatt and his subordinate police officers to vacate the said property by showing him arrested under NDPS offence. The said Advocate, while in the custody of Gujarat Police and due to police torture, vacated the property and physical possession of the property was handed over to the sister of Shri R.R. Jain, Judge of Gujarat High Court. Shri Sanjiv Bhatt and his subordinate police officers, thereafter released Shri Sumersingh Rajpurohit on 08-05-1996, by filling a report u/s 169 Cr. PC, in which it was mentioned that Shri Sumersingh could not be identified in the Test Identification Parade. Quashing Petitions were field in this matter by the accused persons in Rajasthan and Gujarat High Court, but the same had been dismissed. The matter is now pending before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.
“In the meantime, on the complaint of Shri Sidheshwar Puri, Secretary, Bar Association, Pali (Rajasthan), National Human Rights Commission taking a very serious view of this false case under NDPS Act vide its order dated 15-09-2010 asked Govt. of Gujarat to pay a sum of Rs. one lakh as monetary relief to Shri Sumersingh, Advocate, Pali.
“Significantly, Gujarat Vigilance Commission recommended twice on 15-07-2002 and 19-10-2006 that Shri Sanjiv Bhatt should be placed under suspension for his professional misconducts, but the govt. of Gujarat did not do so.
“In view of the aforesaid position, it can be inferred that Shri Sanjiv Bhatt is facing a lot of problems in service matters and has [page 51 now] got an axe to grind against the Govt. of Gujarat and, therefore, his evidence is ill-motivated and cannot be relied upon.”
This shows that as the late Haren Pandya, Sanjiv Bhatt took on Modi for similar reasons. One, his promotion was due but could not be got due to departmental inquiries and criminal cases. And second, and most importantly, he took on Modi so as to become a ‘hero’, get the support of the mainstream media, the then ruling UPA, and then get out of the serious cases pending against him.
He hoped that with the national and international media raising his issue as a ‘cop who took on Modi’, the courts would not convict him, and his prosecution would be seen as ‘vindictive action by Modi Government on a whistle-blower cop’. This same is also the strategy of Teesta Setalvad, any prosecution of her is cried as ‘vindictive action’ and support is organized worldwide immediately for her. However, Sanjiv Bhatt did not succeed in courts, though he did in the media and political circles [political opponents of the BJP]. On 20 June 2019, he got life imprisonment in the 1990 Jamnagar case.
But he has supporters on Twitter, which include many mainstream journalists and political leaders and workers, who continue to demand his release, claiming that he was ‘framed’ for taking on Modi! What wonders his strategy of taking on Modi worked for him! Had he not taken on Modi, and been an unknown officer with criminal cases, who would have demanded his release, or immunity from prosecution?
He deserves to be in jail for far more crimes committed by him as well, primarily perjury. There is a truckload of evidence of Sanjiv Bhatt’s crimes, which has been covered up totally by the media.
Let us see how similar it is to the late Haren Pandya. Haren Pandya was accused of demolishing a dargah near his house on 1st March 2002 in anger against Godhra, a dargah which was on the roads causing inconvenience to traffic and may have had to be demolished by the municipal corporation anyway. The self-styled liberals were howling against Haren Pandya much before March 2002 itself owing to his alleged ‘anti-minority’ views. [In 2001 when the movie Gadar was released, he had said “There is nothing in it which would hurt an Indian Muslim. If there’s anything it’s against Pakistan”.] After the alleged role of Pandya in the dargah demolition, they were condemning Pandya even more.
There was a self-appointed Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal (CCT), headed by Retd Supreme Court judge Justice Krishna Iyer, which had no authority to do anything and gave a horribly biased report full of lies [e.g. it claimed that ’40 were killed in police firing in Ahmedabad on 28 February 2002 out of which 36 were Muslims’, while the fact is that 17 were killed in police firing on that day of which 11 were Hindus, as mentioned by the SIT report on page 210]. That CCT report was largely authored by Teesta Setalvad, many parts of that report are copy-pasted word for word from earlier articles of Teesta Setalvad’s magazine Combat Communalism of earlier months of 2002, and whose contribution in making of the report has been acknowledged by Justice Krishna Iyer himself in Volume 1, pp 5-6.
The CCT published its report in November 2002 in the form of a book titled “Crime against humanity” and made many charges against the late Haren Pandya himself for his alleged anti-Muslim statements and activities and severely criticized Pandya on Vol. I page 36, page 44, page 48, Vol. II page 48, page 49, page 52, page 77, page 87. The SIT report gives many quotes from that report against the late Haren Pandya on his alleged anti-Muslim statements and activities on pages 452-456.
But after Pandya started targeting Narendra Modi, they forgot all their charges on Pandya, and made him a hero! This also exposes the biased section of the media- that it will make a hero out of anyone targeting Narendra Modi, ignoring the merits of the case completely, and will forget all charges on that person targeting the big fish Narendra Modi. For the complete truth of the Haren Pandya issue, read this article.
Modi became Chief Minister of Gujarat in October 2001 and had to enter the Assembly. Till then he had never fought a single election in his life from a corporation to the Lok Sabha. Ellis Bridge seat is considered one of the safest for the BJP in the country. It was a part of Advani’s Gandhinagar seat till delimitation. Modi reportedly wanted Pandya to vacate this seat of Ellisbridge so that he i.e. Modi could enter the Assembly but Pandya who was then Home Minister refused. So Modi had to go for Rajkot II which he won by 14,000 votes on 24 February 2002, 3 days before the Godhra carnage.
Pandya was demoted from Home Minister to Revenue Minister and since then his resentment against Modi became even stronger. Pandya then resigned from the Ministry in August 2002 as MoS for Revenue too. Then when in December 2002 elections came Modi denied Pandya a ticket. The SIT also says on page 240 that: “Also relevant here is the strained relationship between him and Shri Narendra Modi, a fact revealed by late Pandya’s father late Vithalbhai Pandya.”
Similar was the case with Sanjiv Bhatt. Not merely was he in trouble with legal cases (the 1990 Jamnagar one, as well as the drug planting one of 1996), he had personal issues with his promotion. On page 518 the SIT said: “The view of the Ld. Amicus Curiae that it does not appear very likely that a serving police officer would make such a serious allegation without some basis appears to be erroneous in as much as Shri Sanjiv Bhatt had been all along a delinquent in his career and had been trying to bargain with the government. The very fact that three departmental enquiries against Shri Sanjiv Bhatt were dropped in 2006-07 and he was given three promotions on a single day would by itself go to show his service career progression. Again, his promotion to the rank of IGP was due for quite some time but he did not get the same because of other departmental enquiries as well as court cases pending against him. The reason by itself is sufficient to bring a motive on part of Sanjiv Bhatt to make a statement against the Chief Minister…”
There is a lot of evidence to expose more of Sanjiv Bhatt’s lies, especially his claims of being present in that crucial 27 February 2002 meeting. A separate article is there to discuss that issue on merit. But here we will just give conclusive evidence that he was not present in that meeting. The SIT report says on page 427:
- “That Shri Sanjiv Bhatt has been maintaining a close contact with Shri Rahul Sharma, DIG of Gujarat Police and had been getting his mobile phone calls analyzed with a view to ascertain his own movements of 27-02-2002. This shows that Bhatt does not recollect his movements on that day. He has also been trying to ascertain the movements of Late Haren Pandya, the then Minister of State for Revenue on 27-02-2002, with a view to introduce him as a participant of the meeting of 27-02-2002 held at CM’s residence, but could not do so, as Shri Rahul Sharma had informed him after the analysis that there was absolutely no question of Late Haren Pandya being at Gandhinagar on 27-02-2002 night.
“From the study of emails, it appears that certain vested interests including Shri Sanjiv Bhatt, different NGOs and some political leaders were trying to use Hon’ble Supreme Court/SIT as a forum for settling their scores. This would also go to show that Shri Sanjiv Bhatt had been colluding with the persons with vested interests to see that some kind of charge-sheet is filed against Shri Narendra Modi and others.”
This makes things absolutely clear and also shows that many people were involved in this fraud, who knew that Sanjiv Bhatt was not present at the 27 February 2002 meeting, but far from bringing out the truth to the investigators, were helping in this false claim.
Haren Pandya (murdered in March 2003) of course, was not present in that meeting so his testimony does not have the slightest value. The SIT report also says on page 56 that Haren Pandya’s mobile records show that he was in Ahmedabad on 27 Feb 2002 at 22:52 hours, meaning that it was impossible for him to attend the meeting in Gandhinagar at 10:30 PM on 27 Feb. As we showed in Myth 19, he could not even name correctly the people present in the meeting.
This shows that Sanjiv Bhatt was not present at all in the meeting, and he did not even know basic facts about the meeting. It is known since August 2002 (when Haren Pandya’s errors in naming people in the meeting were admitted by him to Outlook and by the magazine itself, or at least after his murder in March 2003 after which Outlook reported that the minister giving the information was indeed Haren Pandya) that Haren Pandya was by no means present in the meeting. But Sanjiv Bhatt did not even know this and hence first asked Rahul Sharma to find out if Haren Pandya could be introduced as a witness-a participant in that meeting.
Most importantly, this conclusively shows that Sanjiv Bhatt was not present at all. If Sanjiv Bhatt was present in the meeting, wouldn’t he know if Haren Pandya was present or not? Why would he need to ask Rahul Sharma to find the call details? This also shows that Rahul Sharma also knew the truth, that Sanjiv Bhatt was not present, but did not tell the investigators.
Besides, Sanjiv Bhatt falsely claimed to be present in the 28 February 10:30 AM meeting at the CM’s Bungalow, Gandhinagar. The SIT says on page 45: “The claim of Sanjiv Bhat that he attended the said meeting at 1030 hours at CM’s location is proved to be false from the location of his mobile phone, which was at Prerna Tower, Vastrapur-I, Ahmedabad City at 10:57:43 hrs.” Sanjiv Bhatt was at Ahmedabad, more than 25 km away from Chief Minister’s Bungalow in Gandhinagar at that time. This conclusive evidence exposing his lies was conveniently ignored by the Leftist media.
(The writer is the author of book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story” which gives all details about the 2002 riots- Godhra and after, one of the admins of www.gujaratriots.com and one of the admins of the Twitter handle @gujaratriotscom)
