Teesta Setalvad, high profile 'human rights' activist and head of the pompously named NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, finds herself trapped in the elaborate web of deceit and lies she has relentlessly spun ever since the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat eight years ago. Her brazenly motivated and biased campaign against the Government headed by Chief Minister Narendra Modi with the sole intention of defaming him and the BJP, apart from maligning Hindus as a community, has been sustained by Left-liberal poseurs in the media and south Delhi's commentariat which believes it has monopoly over truth. That the 'truth' which Ms Setalvad and her admirers peddle with such vigour, and which has come to taint the Union Government's approach towards Gujarat, is no more than a concoction of stories that are more fiction than fact is fast coming to the fore. A Muslim associate of Ms Setalvad, whose conscience has rebelled against the latter's devious means to implicate individuals in manufactured cases, has gone public with details of how affidavits were drafted in a particular manner and 'victims' made to sign on them without being told of their contents. Earlier, this newspaper had published a documented report of Ms Setalvad handing over money to 'witnesses' whose affidavits she had drafted and who had willy-nilly become captive to her wiles. And now we have further evidence of how Ms Setalvad has sought to pervert the course of justice by tutoring witnesses and getting them to file affidavits that reflect her version of events that has no bearing at all with what transpired in Gujarat in the wake of the ghastly burning of Sabarmati Express coaches, in which kar sevaks were travelling, at Godhra.
One of the accused in the post-Godhra violence, who has been in jail on account of these tutored witnesses and their patently false affidavits, has filed an application in the Supreme Court, pointing out how the SIT during its investigations had stumbled across evidence of Ms Setalvad's perjury. In one particular case, 22 identical affidavits were filed by 'witnesses'. When asked to explain the remarkable similarity, the 'witnesses' said they had been made to sign on the affidavits by Ms Setalvad and were not aware of their contents. In yet another case, in which rape has been alleged, the 'witness' has disowned the contents of his affidavit and admitted that he was made to sign on it by Ms Setalvad after the so-called 'victim' indignantly told the SIT that she had not been raped. The Supreme Court will take up the application exposing Ms Setalvad for hearing later this month and it is hoped that justice will be done. If there has been a concerted effort by Ms Setalvad and her NGO to influence the course of justice, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, the Supreme Court should mete out exemplary punishment to her and her associates so that others are not tempted to tread the same path. Meanwhile, the apex court should halt proceedings in all courts till such time the issue of perjury is settled.
