Ex-IPS Officer Sanjiv Bhatt was convicted and given life imprisonment in a custodial death case. The case dates back to 1990 when Sanjiv was posted as the additional superintendent of police in Jamnagar.
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Sacked IPS Sanjiv Bhatt sentenced to life imprisonment
Suspended, sacked, sentenced: Sanjiv Bhatt's life
Here are 10 things that people should know about Sanjiv:
- Ahmedabad-based Sanjiv is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and among the few direct-recruit Gujaratis in the IPS.
- In 2011, Sanjiv had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court accusing the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi of complicity in the 2002 riots. He claimed to have attended a meeting convened by Modi on the day of the riots and instructions were allegedly given to police to not take action against the perpetrators of violence. The court-appointed SIT, however, gave a clean chit to Modi.
- Sanjiv's wife Shweta Bhatt contested the Assembly elections in 2012 against Narendra Modi on a Congress ticket.
- In 1990, Sanjiv had detained around 150 people during a communal riot in Jamjodhpur town. One of the detained persons, Prabhudas Vaishnani, had died in a hospital after he was released, allegedly due to torture.
- Vaishnani’s brother Amritbhai filed a case against Sanjiv, then Additional Superintendent of Police; Jhala; and six other policemen, alleging that the victim was severely thrashed and tortured in custody.
- As superintendent of Sabarmati Central Jail, Sanjiv shocked his bosses in 2003 when he included ‘gajar ka halwa’ on the prisoners’ menu.
- Also in 2003, 70 per cent of about 3,000 inmates at Sabarmati Central Jail went on a hunger strike to protest the transfer of Sanjiv from the facility.
- In 2018, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation demolished a portion of Sanjiv's house which was deemed to be an illegally constructed.
- Constable Karansinh Panth, Sanjiv's former colleague, filed a police complaint against him. Panth alleged that Sanjiv forced him to file a false affidavit.
- Sanjiv was suspended in 2011 on charges of remaining absent from duty without permission and misuse of official vehicles, and later sacked in August 2015.