Never seen 'khakhi' so helpless: Sanjiv Bhatt's wife on his arrest

Two days after the Supreme Court termed as “serious” the allegations made by Shweta Bhatt, wife of arrested former Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, that he was not being allowed to sign the documents necessary for approaching the higher court, she expressed hope that justice would be meted out to them.

Bhatt was arrested by Gujarat Police on September 5 in connection with a 22-year-old case. The ex-IPS officer, who was the then superintendent of police in Banaskantha district, is accused of framing a Rajasthan-based lawyer in a narcotics peddling case in 1996.

While lawyer Sumersinh Rajput was then arrested on charges of possessing around one kilogram of drugs, Rajasthan Police, which investigated the case, concluded that the lawyer was falsely implicated to make him let go off a disputed property in Pali, Rajasthan. 

In June this year, the Gujarat High Court handed over the case to CID and asked it to complete the probe in three months. 

“It is strange. Why are we tolerating this (Bhatt not being allowed to sign documents)?,” asked Shweta while speaking to THE WEEK. “I am expecting justice,” she said. 

Shweta said the way Bhatt was picked up for questioning and later arrested reflected how “helpless” the khakhi is. “I have never seen khakhi so helpless,” she remarked. 

Claiming that it was traumatic to face such a situation, Shweta said that people should be questioning this, but unfortunately that was not happening.

“Even a 'big culprit' gets time. Justice is expected,” she said. Shweta, who in the past unsuccessfully contested the assembly elections on a Congress ticket against Narendra Modi from Maninagar, Ahmedabad, said that this might happen to each of us.

She also said that they were in Ahmedabad all these years and nobody came to question them in connection with the case. 

Bhatt had taken on the then Narendra Modi government of Gujarat in connection with post-Godhra riots. He was dismissed from service in 2015 for "unauthorised absence".

Shweta pointed out to the sequence of events that unfolded around the Bhatts. “First they (the government) withdrew the security cover given to Sanjiv and then the municipal corporation demolished a portion of the house. We did tell the corporation that a petition was pending in the court and if the verdict came against us, we would ourselves demolish the portion,” she said, adding that the kitchen of the house was demolished and they were not allowed to remove their things from the place.

A mother of two, Shweta has been taking to social media to post on Bhatt's accounts for garnering support.