[Reader-list] Baseless media reports making allegations against Teesta Setalvad and Citizens For Justice and Peace

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI

--
I. Baseless reports in the Indian media alleging that social activist
Teesta Setalvad and CPJ exaggerated the violence during Gujarat pogrom
of 2002
http://www.sacw.net/article827.html

1.
Citizens For Justice and Peace

Mumbai, April 14, 2009
CJP’s Rebuttal on Media Coverage of Supreme Court Proceedings, April 13, 2009

The report in sections of the national media dated April 14, 2009,
alleging that NGOs, Teesta etc misled the apex court and exaggerated
the violence in Gujarat in 2002 are clear example of irresponsible
reportage. Intentionally or otherwise, the distorted report damages
the reputation of a citizens’ group that has been recognized
nationally and internationally for working assiduously to ensure
justice to the victims of mass violence whether in case of the Gujarat
carnage (2002), or the bomb blasts in Mumbai (2006 and 2008) or the
communal carnage in Kandhamal district, Orissa (2008), irrespective of
the caste or creed of the victims or the perpetrators.

The fact is that neither Sri Raghavan, nor any other SIT member was
present at the apex court to “tell” it anything. These reports could
only be referring to a contention made in a four page note circulated
by Ms Hemantika Wahi for the Gujarat Government.. It was NOT a note
prepared by SIT.

The detailed report of SIT submitted to the Supreme Court on March 6,
2007 has not been available for study either to National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC), the petitioners in this case, or the Citizens for
Justice and Peace (CJP) who have intervened in this critical matter or
to any in the media. Any reference to it is hence hearsay and it may
amount to contempt of court to write about a report which the Court
has specifically not made public.

In its written note that the Gujarat state circulated in court
yesterday, the state has given its brief comments on the SIT report.
In para four of this note the Gujarat government note refers to
alleged statements made by some witnesses in the Gulberg case before
SIT that name accused other than those named by them in the written
statements that were (according to the state of Gujarat) given to them
by Teesta Setalvad and advocates. This is the version of the Gujarat
state. Besides this, Mukhul Rohatgi tried to make a populist speech in
court saying that incidents like the Kauser Bano case etc never
happened. The Supreme Court disregarded this argument and did not
allow Mr.Rohatgi to read anything from the report. The court went on
to state that they were not interested in personal allegations and
only ensuring that, like in the course of the Zahira Shaikh case, the
trials are fair, the truth comes out and the course of justice is
served.

It is necessary to recalled that in the course of the Best Bakery
trial, too, the Gujarat government had tried to divert the court’s
attention by engineering charges against Teesta Setalvad, secretary
CJP and by implication the NGO. On Setalvad’s application to the apex
court for a full fledged inquiry the report of the Registrar of the
apex court exonerated Setalvad and the NGO completely.

As reported by the rest of the national media, on Monday, ignoring Sri
Rohatgi’s bid to side-step the main issues, the three-member bench of
the Supreme Court remained focused on the modalities of setting up
designated courts for the trial of the accused in the post-Godhra riot
cases in Gujarat. Instead of highlighting the court proceedings, Sri
Mahapatra chose to spice up his report focusing not on the
deliberations or the intentions of the apex court but to promote the
case of the Gujarat government.

The moot question is whether or not 2,500 persons were killed in a
ghastly perpetrated massacre following the tragic burning alive of 59
persons on the Sabarmati express; whether or not ex parliamentarian
Ahsan Jafri was mutilated before being burnt alive, whether the bodies
of the missing dead (over 220) have not been found or returned for
dignified burial after seven long years? All the national media was
witness to this national tragedy.

In the interests of fair reportage and to ensure that the reputation
of a citizens group committed to equity and justice is not
deliberately vitiated before the trials commence, the media should
carry this rebuttal in full. A failure to do so will result in the
columns of a national newspaper being used to distort facts, shape
public perception and seek to influence the outcome of due process of
law and justice to the victims of mass murder.

(Statement by Citizens for Justice and Peace, Mumbai, April 14, 2009, Mumbai)

We wish also that the following issues

Pertinent issues ignored in these reports:

The arrests of minister Dr Maya Kodnani and Dr Jaideep Patel in the
past weeks were on the basis of SIT re-investigations. Twelve FIRs
filed by witnesses naming these accused in 2002 had been clubbed into
a magnum FIR by the Ahmedabad crime branch that had dropped the names
of these powerful accused;

The arrests of investigating officer KG Erda in the Gulberg case and
of other policemen in the other cases over the past months has meant
the claims of witness survivors and legal rights groups, prima facie,
are valid;

That this was one of the issues why the apex court has chosen to
appoint SIT, the full scale subversion of the process of justice, from
the removal of names of accused who’s names appeared in earlier
statements simply because they enjoyed political patronage; the
appointment of prosecutors with allegiances to the BJP and VHP which
meant instead of promoting fair trial they sided with the politically
powerful and protected accused;

More pertinently the tragic slaying of pregnant Kauser Bano at Naroda
Patiya after slitting her womb was reported in Deccan Herald,(April
17, 2004) and The Indian Express, (March 23, 2005) among others apart
from finding place in innumerable reports including the one authored
by the Concerned Citizens Tribunal-Crimes Against Humanity 2002 headed
by two Supreme Court judges, Justices Krishna Iyer and PB Sawant.
Similarly the British national case was similarly documented apart
from being covered in The Pioneer, March 3, 2002 and The Hindu, April
23, 2002.

Trustees:

Teesta Setalvad, I.M. Kadri, Arvind Krishnaswamy, Javed Akhtar, Cyrus
Guzder, Alyque Padamsee, Anil Dharker, Nandan Maluste, Javed Anand,
Rahul Bose, Cedric Prakash

----

2.

SAHMAT
 8 Vithalbhai Patel House
 Rafi Marg, New Delhi
 Tel: 2371 1276, 2335 1424
 E mail: sahmat(at)vsnl.com

14.4.2009
Press Statement on Tendentious Reporting in Media

We are deeply disturbed by the tendentious reports in the media of the
Supreme Court proceedings on April 13 dealing with the SIT report on
the Gujarat carnage of 2002.

This unhealthy trend in the media reporting is going to seriously
compromise the credibility of the media and undermine "freedom of
expression" enjoyed by the media which we all cherish.

An impression being created in a section of the media that the former
CBI director R K Raghvan who led the SIT has "told" the court that
Teesta Setalvad "cooked up macabre tales of wanton killing" is
mischievious. Only the Supreme Court, the amicus curiae and the
Gujarat government have access to the report. The SIT has not filed
any other document in court to which the media has access nor was Mr.
Raghvan in the Court. It is therefore obvious that the media is only
uncritically reporting what the Gujarat government’s lawyer said in
the note liberally distributed to the press outside the Court.

While the Supreme Court observed that there was no room for
allegations and counter allegations at this late stage, the media
coverage has brazenly flouted this observation by reporting the
totally baseless allegations against social activist Teesta Setalvad
and the organisation she represents Citizen for Justice and Peace on
the basis of the Gujarat government’s note circulated in the Court.
This is all the more reprehensible because Teesta Setalvad and Citizen
for Justice and Peace have neither been given a copy of the SIT report
nor has their response been sought in the matter.

The proceedings in the Supreme Court related to the response of the
Gujarat government and the amicus curiae Shri Harish Salve to the SIT
report. The very fact that the Supreme Court had to set up the SIT to
correct the miscarriage of justice due to the tardy investigation by
the state of Gujarat was highlighted in the court’s observation that
but for the SIT investigation many more accused, who were freshly
added, would not have been brought to book. It was the untiring
efforts of Teesta Setalvad and the CJP and the National Human Rights
Commission that persuaded the Supreme Court to set up the SIT and on
the basis of its findings further arrests have been made of persons
who held administrative and ministerial positions in the government of
Gujarat.

M.K.Raina
 for
 SAHMAT

____

II.

Teesta's Rebuttal to Times of India report, dated April 14, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/caab37