NEW DELHI: Days after IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who was locked in a public confrontation with the Gujarat government over 2002 post-Godhra riots, faced suspension — Gujarat DIG Rahul Sharma was on Saturday chargesheeted for indiscipline. Rahul Sharma has been chargesheeted for misconduct in taking away CDs from the 2002 riots case papers.
This move from the Gujarat government comes after DIG Rahul Sharma did not toe the political line in the probe into the 2002 riots and subsequent encounters. Sharma’s lawyer Mukul Sinha said, “This is shocking, we are studying the chargesheet. They have targeted any person who has spoken the truth about the riots.” The chargesheet came a day after home mininister P Chidambaram said that the Centre is willing to intervene in the IPS officers versus Gujarat Government fight. Chidambaram reiterated that there are rules which allow the Centre to intervene but only at the behest of the officer concerned.
“Rules do provide for central government to take certain decisions but this depends on officer concerned. If officer concerned raises it we can,” said Chidambaram.
In May 2002, Sharma was asked to assist the investigations into the Naroda Patia massacre (95 dead). As a part of the investigation, phone call data of the entire city of Ahmedabad was collected. This data revealed the links of political leaders with police officers and their movements during the peak of rioting. The then joint commissioner of crime branch, P P Pande, had handed over a set of two CDs, containing the data, to Sharma and asked him to analyse the records. Sharma copied the same in his home computer on the hard-disk but before he could study them he was transferred to Vav, Surat. (Agencies)