Mischievous and manufactured: Congress refutes Ahmed Patel-Teesta Setalvad charges

New Delhi, July 16: The Congress on Saturday said the "mischievous" and "manufactured" allegations by the Gujarat Police's against its late leader Ahmed Patel was part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "systematic strategy" to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage back then.

The SIT which is probing Teesta Setalvad's role among others in the case of criminal conspiracy and forgery said Teesta Setalvad had received money from Ahmad Patel and was enacting a larger conspiracy to destabilise the Gujarat government soon after the 2002 Gujarat riot. The SIT in its affidavit also said that Setalvad held meetings with Patel and also received Rs 5 lakh at the first instance from a witness on the instructions of the late Congress leader. She received Rs 25 lakh more two days later again at the behest of Patel, the SIT said.

Refuting the charges, the Congress issued a statement and said,"This is part of the Prime Minister's systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002.''

'' It was his unwillingness and incapacity to control this carnage that had led the-then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the chief minister of his rajdharma," Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said.

The statement said that this is Prime Minister's political vendetta machine which does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries.

"This SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a 'clean chit' to the chief minister," Jairam said.

He said giving judgment through press, in an ongoing judicial process, through puppet investigative agencies who trumpet wild allegations as supposed findings, has been the hallmark of the Modi-Shah duo's tactics for years.

"This is nothing but another example of the same, with the added object of vilifying a deceased person since he is obviously unable and unavailable to refute such brazen lies."