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In some comforting news coming in from Ahmedabad, Teesta Setalvad is doing okay while in custody of the Ahmedabad Crime Branch. Her husband Javed Anand is allowed to meet her once a day.
“I met her just before they took her for the mandatory medical check-up. She appeared fine,” said Anand. “I am allowed to meet her once a day. She has no complaints about the food and is also sleeping okay. When I meet her, it is in a room with a table and chair, with police personnel nearby,”he added.
Readers would recall that on June 25, just before a unit of the Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) whisked her away to Ahmedabad, Teesta Setalvad had submitted a handwritten complaint against two police officials for barging into her home and physically assaulting her when she demanded to speak to her lawyer. In her complaint, the 60-year-old human rights defender who is also the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) had mentioned that she had sustained a bruise on her hand due to the assault and feared for her life.
After Anand met her, Setalvad’s lawyers were also allowed to meet her.
This should bring some relief to activists and journalists who have been worried about Setalvad, who is clearly being targeted via a retributive prosecution enabled by observations of the Supreme Court in the judgment where the court dismissed the petition by Zakia Jafri. CJP, through Setalvad was the second petitioner in the case where an appeal was made for a thorough investigation into the role of people in positions of power at the time of the 2002 Gujarat post-Godhra carnage in allowing the violence to continue unabated, via acts of omission and commission.
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