By Mubasshir Mushtaq
MUMBAI, India
The firing of a senior policeman who has accused India's current prime minister of complicity in deadly inter-communal riots has been described by activists and political analysts as part of a "political vendetta".
Sanjiv Bhatt was removed from his senior role in the Gujarat police on Wednesday for allegedly "defiant" and "flagrant" violations of rules for government workers, but has denied the charges, calling the investigation a "sham".
Bhatt had petitioned the Supreme Court in April 2011 and testified against Narendra Modi, the then-chief minister of Gujarat, for his alleged complicity in 2002 riots which killed over 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.
“Bhatt’s crime was his presence at the chief minister Narendra Modi’s meeting in the aftermath of February 27, 2002 burning of a train at Godhra,” Juzar Bandukwala, a civil rights activist and a survivor of the Gujarat riots, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.
