Sacked IPS Sanjiv Bhatt gets life imprisonment in 1989 custodial death case
Jamnagar, Jun 20 (UNI/IBNS): A local court here on Thursday sentenced sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to life imprisonment in connection with the 1989 custodial death case. Bhatt had been in news in the past decade and more over his unproven allegations concerning the 2002 Gujarat riots against PM Narendra Modi, who was then the Gujarat Chief Minister.
According to the prosecution, Bhatt, who was posted as the Additional Superintendent of Police in Gujarat's Jamnagar, had detained more than 100 people during a communal riot there and one of the detainees had died in hospital after he was released.
The deceased's brother Amritbhai filed a case alleging that his brother died due to custodial torture by eight policemen, including Bhatt and then constable Pravin Zala, who has also been awarded life imprisonment.
On June 12, the Supreme Court dismissed Bhatt's petition seeking a direction to summon certain additional witnesses for examination during the trial in a three-decade-old custodial death case. The Gujarat government too had opposed his plea, saying that it was a delaying tactic at at time when the lower court has already completed the final hearing and was about to deliver the verdict.
Bhatt, a Gujarat cadre IPS, was suspended by the state government in 2011 for remaining absent from duty without permission, and later sacked for the same in August 2015.
He is currently in judicial custody in connection with a drug planting case.
Bhatt had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India against Modi, concerning his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. But his allegations were dismissed.
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