The Ahmedabad rural court on Saturday declined to grant police remand for the suspended IPS officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, and sent him to judicial custody.
Mr. Bhatt was arrested on Friday on a complaint by his one-time colleague in the State intelligence branch. Declining the police plea, the court agreed with Mr. Bhatt's lawyer that police remand was unnecessary as what the police were looking for was already in the records of the Supreme Court and the Gujarat High Court.
The court is expected to hear his bail application on Monday; most of the charges levelled against him are bailable. His lawyer hinted that he could move the court on Sunday, though it was a holiday.
After conducting a four-hour search operation at Mr. Bhatt's house in the Memnagar locality on Friday night, the police came back on Saturday. However, following objections raised by his family members and lawyer, the search party beat a retreat without entering his house. But within hours it reappeared with a revised search warrant and was permitted to enter the house.
Sources said the police were looking for copies of an affidavit reportedly filed “under pressure” by his former colleague, K.D. Panth, a constable attached to the Meghaninagar station before the Supreme Court-appointed amicus curiae, supporting Mr. Bhatt's claim that he was present at a meeting at the residence of Chief Minister Narendra Modi on the night of February 27, 2002. At that meeting, Mr. Modi was alleged to have “directed' the police to “allow Hindus to vent out their anger,” following the Godhra train carnage.
After an intensive search, the police returned with a computer hard disk. Besides searching Mr. Bhatt's house, the police raided his mother's house in the neighbourhood on Friday night.
