The recent conviction of disgraced former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a custodial torture and death case has again pushed the Left-Liberal network into damage control mode. Coming to the rescue of the suspended IPS officer, the left-liberal nexus has been running an organized whitewashing campaign to turn this long-awaited conviction into Modi government’s campaign of vendetta politics. Several journalists and left-leaning online portals have been the main culprits in pushing forward these meek attempts.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) came out with an article titled “Sanjiv Bhatt: India riots whistleblower gets life in jail for murder” which evidently is not just misleading but also holds with itself everything that has been wrong with the left-liberal media. The article clearly maneuvers around the heinous crimes committed by Sanjiv Bhatt and tries to portray the conviction to be motivated by Sanjiv Bhatt’s anti-Modi conduct.
The tainted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has been sentenced to imprisonment for life by a local court in Jamnagar in connection with the custodial death of an undertrial, Prabhudas Madhavji Vaishnani in Jamjodhpur, which occurred in 1990. Another police official, Praveen Singh Jhala has been sent to the prison for life, as per the decision.
Another journalist, Saba Naqvi also tried to raise questions on Sanjiv Bhatt’s conviction by the Jamnagar local court. She had tweeted:
Has any cop ever got such a sentence for custodial death?
Pls enlighten us if so….
There are so many custodial deaths in India….Sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt gets life term in 1990 custodial death case – The Hindu https://t.co/SUlifKee7E
— Saba Naqvi (@_sabanaqvi) June 20, 2019
“Has any cop ever got such a sentence for custodial death? Pls enlighten us if so…. There are so many custodial deaths in India….Sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt gets life term in 1990 custodial death case – The Hindu”
The Wire, another left-leaning portal also joined the efforts to whitewash Sanjiv Bhatt’s image post his conviction. In an article titled “IPS Officer Who Questioned Modi’s Role in Gujarat Riots Gets Life in 30-Year-Old Case”, The Wire has also tried to link the conviction of the disgraced IPS officer with his anti-Modi stance. The article reads
“Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who had famously filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court alleging Narendra Modi’s complicity as chief minister of Gujarat in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Jamnagar sessions court for a 1990 custodial torture and death case.”
Though the article mentions about the affidavit filed by Sanjiv Bhatt, it conveniently fails to mention that the said affidavit was filed on 14 April 2011, 9 years after the riots in the Supreme Court of India. This delay of nine years between the Godhra massacre of 2002 and filing of affidavit raises serious questions on Sanjiv Bhatt’s motive to come out and file an affidavit critical of PM Modi at a time when the heat of the Indian legal system was just building upon him.
The Wire also came out with a story titled “Sanjiv Bhatt Case: In 16 Years, Gujarat Saw 180 Custodial Deaths – and Zero Convictions” on how cops are almost never punished for custodial deaths in India and Bhatt’s conviction was ‘out of the ordinary’, again attempting to mold the narrative and give it colors of ‘political vendetta’ . The Wire also questioned procedures of the hearings.
It is indeed unfortunate that instead of appreciating the judicial system which finally convicted a cop responsible for a custodial death, these journalists were more interested in giving the conviction a ‘political vendetta’ narrative. However, these attempts by the left-liberal media nexus are not new and only point towards the sheer hypocrisy which has been lingering within this group for long.