SIT asks Bhatt to produce original copy of SIB alert message

AHMEDABAD: Special Investigation Team ( SIT) has asked the suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to produce the original copy of the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) alert message he had issued after the controversial meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Narendra Modi on February 27, 2002.

In a notice, issued under section 91 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) on January 13, the SIT had directed Bhatt to produce the original and/or office copy of the alert fax message, which he had attached to his letter of January 4 to the Nanavati Commission, with a copy to the agency.

"You are also directed to produce any other documents/ wireless message, fax messages available with you, which are relevant to the investigation (of Gulburg riot Case)," SIT further stated in the notice to Bhatt, issued by investigating officer Himanshu Shukla.

The alert fax message, according to Bhatt, was issued by him as the DCP of State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) on February 27, 2002, after attending the late evening meeting called by Modi.

According to the message, the state government had decided to bring bodies of 'kar sevaks' to Ahmedabad. It had also cautioned massive mobilisation of local cadres of VHP and Bajrang Dal for enforcing bandh on February 28, 2002, besides anticipating widespread communal violence and requesting preventive action from police.

Bhatt, in his reply, wrote to SIT chief R K Raghavan yesterday stating that the notice was "outrageously shocking" as SIT was asking for documents that he had already given to SIT member A K Malhotra in 2009 and later to Shukla in 2011.