The suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt says the closure report submitted by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) only confirmed his long-standing apprehension that it was only working to “shield” Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other “powerful persons” from legal punishment for their involvement in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom.
In a letter to SIT Chairman R.K. Raghavan, Mr. Bhatt said it was “outrageously shocking” that even after his repeated requests the SIT did not issue any timely direction to the State government for preservation and production of vital contemporaneous documents, and allowed it to selectively destroy the potentially incriminating documents “with the tacit blessings of the SIT.” Claiming that the closure report made it apparently clear that the SIT was carrying out “further investigation” even after the Sep 12, 2011 Supreme Court order to submit its final report to a competent metropolitan magistrate’s court in Ahmedabad, Mr. Bhatt said it was done “with the sole purpose and motive of shielding Mr. Modi and other powerful accused persons from legal punishmen