Topic: Sanjiv Bhatt

"Today, however, instead of laughter, our home is steeped in deafening silence, the morning, instead of being filled with giddy anticipation of waking dad up to another amazing year, to gifts, flowers, cake and breakfast … is filled with a nauseating sense of helplessness as yet another year stares us in the face, of dad being away from us," wrote Aakashi Bhatt and Shantanu Bhatt, children of Sanjiv Bhatt on Monday morning.

Akashi Bhatt, daughter of former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in an alleged custodial death case dating back to 1990, has called chargsheets against her father "fabricated" and claimed that he had been "persecuted by Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government."

Muslim Youth League State president Syed Munavarali Shihab Thangal said the Youth League would be an umbrella to Mr. Bhatt who had been a victim of terrorism of the regime.

Shweta Bhatt said the sentencing was a “blatant example of vindictive persecution”. “Justice has not only been denied, but an innocent man has been persecuted for doing his duty with diligence,” she said, adding that they will challenge the sessions court order.

Hours after a court in Gujarat sentenced sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to life imprisonment in a custodial death case dating back to 1990, on Thursday, 20 June, his wife Shweta Bhatt said that he is facing punishment for a “crime he did not commit.”

Mr. Bhatt had several run-ins with the BJP government in the past over the 2002 post-Godhra riots. The Indian Police Service officer had alleged that Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, was complicit in the riots of 2002.