The IPS officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, who had taken on Narendra Modi, then Gujarat’s chief minister, has been terminated from his post with immediate effect.
Confirming the news, Bhatt said, ” I have received the message that I have been terminated from the service.” He added that he had not decided whether to challenge this decision by the ministry of home affairs at the centre.
Later he tweeted;
Finally removed from service today after serving 27 years in the Indian Police Service. Once again eligible for employment. 🙂 Any takers?
— Sanjiv Bhatt (IPS) (@sanjivbhatt) August 19, 2015
In 2011, the IPS officer, also an IIT alumnus, had filed an explosive affidavit in the Supreme Court accusing Modi of being ‘complicit in the 2002 riots’ that killed close to 2000 people, mostly Muslims.
His affidavit had said, “I had attended the meeting held by the then chief minister of Gujarat Mr Modi, who asked the top police officials to let Hindus vent out their anger against the minority community following the attack on the Sabarmati Express in which 59 Hindus were torched to death near the Godhra railway station.”
Following his affidavit, the state government suspended him before arresting him briefly. The state government accused him of going on leave without permission. Bhatt, for his part, rejected this allegation arguing that he was absent because of the illness of his mother.
He said he was also required to be in Ahmedabad because he was deposing before the Nanawati Commission investigating the riots.
The state government had implicated him in several cases and had sent a detailed dossier to the central government seeking his dismissal. The centre had given its nod approving his sacking from the service last year.
Last week, the state government issued him a show-cause notice after an alleged sex video emerged showing a man purportedly resembling Bhatt with an unknown woman. Bhatt denied it was him in the video, but the state government said its forensic laboratory had establish his identity in the video.
