In a landmark judgment delivered on Friday, 24 June 2022, the Supreme Court of India rejected the Zakia Jafri’s plea challenging the SIT’s clean chit to PM Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Dismissing the plea, the apex court rapped the petitioner Zakia Jafri in the Gujarat riots case and termed the petition as “far-fetched” and an attempt to “keep the pot boiling.”
In essence, the Supreme Court yet again exonerated PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah of their involvement in the communal conflagration that erupted in Gujarat after the cowardly burning of the Sabarmati Express near Godhra station on 27 February 2002, resulting in the deaths of 59 people, including women and children.
Besides vindicating PM Modi and Amit Shah, the monumental judgment also exposed the propagandists who built their careers pushing falsehoods of state involvement in fanning and encouraging the riots. From Zakia Jafri to Teesta Setalvad, donation fraud accused Rana Ayyub to disgraced former IPS Sanjiv Bhatt, to Mukul Sinha, a host of individuals peddled elaborate fiction to absolve Islamists responsible for setting the train on fire and implicate Modi and Shah for the violence that ensued later.
Champions of 2002 Gujarat riots ‘conspiracy’: Teesta Setalvad, former IPS Sanjiv Bhatt, Rana Ayyub and their dubious antics
Teesta Setalvad, a so-called rights activist, was one of the co-petitioners seeking a criminal trial against the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and 62 other ministers for their alleged complicity in the riots. On June 24, when the SC dismissed Zakia Jafri’s plea, it made a scathing observation on Setalvad’s involvement in the case. The apex court held that ‘activist’ Teesta Setalvad exploited the emotions of petitioner Zakia Jafri for “ulterior motives”.
However, Setalvad’s infamy stems not from the Supreme Court’s pointed observations but from allegations of misappropriation of funds meant for riot victims. She was arrested today by the Gujarat ATS for giving false information on the 2002 Gujarat riots. She is accused of siphoning off funds contributed to the welfare of those affected by the riots. Raees Khan, a former associate of Setalvad, had claimed that funds which were to be used for educational purposes were misused.
The Gujarat Police said that Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand had spent money collected for constructing a memorial for riot victims and their aid on personal expenses that included wine and liquor, expensive mobile phones, movie CDs, romantic novels, hair-styling, and dining among other avenues. According to the police, the two committed “colossal fraud”.
The police said that the two had “misappropriated the funds of charity and converted to their own use funds meant for the rehabilitation and welfare of the unfortunate victims of riots in Gujarat in Feb-March 2002”. The investigation revealed that Setalvad had claimed reimbursement on the purchase of sanitary napkins and “surprisingly” her husband had claimed the same as well.
Teesta Setalvad was also accused of fraudulently securing financial aid from the HRD Ministry when Kapil Sibal was the Minister during the UPA regime. She was accused of embezzlement of funds to the tune of Rs. 1.51 crores.
During the Shaheen Bagh protests in 2020, Seetalvad was seen tutoring ‘protestors’ on what questions to ask the Supreme Court-appointed interlocutors. In a video that had gone viral on social media, a lady was heard reading out a list of questions the women could ask the interlocutors appointed by the Supreme Court to mediate and convince the Shaheen Bagh protestors to relocate to an alternative place. Teesta Setalvad could be spotted right behind her overseeing the tutoring.
Similarly, another dubious character, former IPS Sanjiv Bhatt, who is currently in jail in connection with a custodial death, got exposed for concocting a meeting with the then CM Narendra Modi at the latter’s residence on 27 February 2022. The Nanavati-Mehta commission, a committee formed to investigate the Godhra Train burning incident, categorically rubbished Bhatt’s claim that he had met CM Narendra Modi on 27 February 2022.
There are others, too, who catapulted their otherwise unremarkable careers by propagating conspiracy theories about the alleged complicity of the state government in the Gujarat riots case. For instance, ‘journalist’ Rana Ayyub, an accused in a donation fraud case, kept talking about sting operation tapes that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt the involvement of higher echelons of leaders in planning and perpetuating the riots.
However, by her own admission, none of the media outlets she “pursued” were ready to release the tapes. In fact, years later, journalist Madhu Trehan exposed the edifice of lies surrounding the Gujarat riots that Rana Ayyub had assiduously built. Trehan revealed that Rana had passed up her offer to publish her much-vaunted ‘tapes’ that she routinely touts as authoritative proof of the Gujarat Riots conspiracy.
Significantly, Rana Ayyub has also authored a book ‘Gujarat Files’ to reinforce her fiction about the riots that rocked the country in the wake of the Godhra train burning incident, in which 59 Hindus, many of them children and women, lost their lives after a bogey of Sabarmati Express returning from Ayodhya was set on fire by miscreants near Godhra station.
However, the Supreme Court of India had trashed Rana Ayyub’s account in ‘Gujarat Files’, rubbishing the book as based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions. The bench had said, “The Book by Rana Ayyub is of no utility. It is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value”. Implying that the arguments made by Rana Ayyub in her book are her opinions, the court said that “The opinion of a person is not in the realm of the evidence.”
It is worth noting that the top court yesterday observed that Tehelka tapes about the alleged conspiracy in the Gujarat riots case are of no avail. The court said, “Tehelka tapes have no legal value, they are used only to sensationalise and politicise the matter.” Yet, Rana Ayyub continues to cite her “sting operation tapes” as credible evidence, without releasing them on the internet, to allege that there was a conspiracy in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The tendency of projecting one’s guilt on others: What it tells about the mentality of Islamists obsessed with implicating PM Modi and Amit Shah in the Gujarat riots case
As the complex edifice of lies and deceit peddled by anti-Modi propagandists falls apart, it provides a window into the mentality that drives such perverse behaviour. A popular psychological theory throws light on the behaviour of propagandists who have made tall claims of conspiracy in the Gujarat riots, only to have them struck down by the courts.
According to the theory, people who harbour a criminal mentality often suspect others of being involved in something similar. Therefore, the outrageous allegations that they level against others are nothing but a reflection of their deeds, which they try to superimpose on others. Just like they tutored the Shaheen Bagh protesters, they dismiss testimonies of actual witnesses by believing that they are all tutored.
This mentality is one of the reasons why the ‘liberals’ refuse to acknowledge the occurrence and victims of ‘Love Jihad’. As they find no qualms in peddling lies and promoting propaganda to project an alternative reality, they believe that victims of ‘Love Jihad’ are also susceptible to the similar behaviour traits that incentivise conjuring up lies and pushing misinformation with unabashed confidence. Therefore, heart-wrenching stories of ‘Love Jihad’ victims do not evoke the kind of response they should and are routinely dismissed as exaggeration and motivated propaganda by the ‘liberals’, because they are driven by a belief that holds their rivals of being as morally corrupt as they are.
How Islamists shield themselves and their brethren by superimposing their vices on others
The extension of the same theory where people try to project their vices on others and judge them by their own moral standards says that they often accuse others of wrongdoing when they want to save themselves or those who represent their ideology. And the past antecedents of the usual suspects mentioned above confirm the theory like Teesta Setalvad while billing herself as the voice of the victims of the riots is herself accused of embezzling funds meant for them.
For example, the usual suspects often throw wild allegations against the Gujarat state government, PM Modi, and HM Amit Shah, accusing them of being involved in engineering the riots, but they consciously refrain from calling out the Islamists who set the Sabarmati Express on fire that touched off the riots in the first place.
Even when they dare to speak about the train burning incident, it invariably involves making preposterous claims that the incident was a result of an “accidental fire” or retaliation for the “abduction of a Muslim girl” or an “inside job”, so the focus shifts away from Islamists responsible for burning the train and they could bolster their propaganda of highlighting the alleged complicity of CM Modi and Amit Shah in the riots.
It is because of this mentality that despite the repeated dismissals by the courts and contradictory findings by the investigative agencies, the usual suspects continue to live in the fiction that PM Modi, Amit Shah, and others are responsible for the riots. The usual suspects are so invested in their meticulously built fiction that they do not need courts or judiciary to declare culpability as witnessed by a tweet from Rana Ayyub where she said, “Sab Bik Gaye hain” after the top court rejected Zakia Jafri’s plea challenging the SIT’s clean chit to PM Modi. Perhaps, this is another manifestation of how the ‘liberals’ consider everyone who does not conform to their worldview as a sellout, just like themselves.
