South Asia Citizens Web

We, the undersigned, strongly criticize the concerted attempts by police in the Indian state of Gujarat to falsely implicate and arrest Indian social activists Ms. Teesta Setalvad and her husband, Mr. Javed Anand, who have been engaged in a 12-year struggle to secure justice and accountability for victims and survivors of the pogrom against Muslim in Gujarat in 2002. Ms. Setalvad and Ms. Anand, activists with the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and the Sabrang Trust, are being persecuted over alleged charges of misuse of funds associated with attempts to convert Gulbarg Housing Society in Ahmedabad, where 69 people were killed in the 2002 violence, into a museum. The case is based on a complaint by 12 members of the Gulbarg Society but the Secretary and Chairman of the Society have said the case was false and noted that the complainants had misused office stationery.

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This is not the first time that Teesta Setalvad is being targetted through false FIRs. Earlier too in the Best Bakery case of Vadodara and the Exhumation case of Panchmahals, there were efforts to malign the name and credibility of journalists Teesta and Javed Anand; however, both were stayed by the Supreme Court. It also cannot be ignored that it was through the efforts of Teesta, Javed and other activists of Gujarat and outside, that 117 people have been given life imprisonment for perpetrating the 2002 Gujarat mass killings, including Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani. Incidentally Gujarat state is the only one where so many victims of communal violence have got justice, thanks to the untiring efforts of human rights defenders like Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand, CJP and others.

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