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Who is Teesta Setalvad?
Teesta Setalvad is a rights activist and journalist based in Mumbai who is popularly known for taking up the cause of the 2002 Gujrat riots victims. She serves as the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace, an NGO formed in the aftermath of the 2002 riots to provide support to the victims. She was awarded Padma Shri in 2007.
Early Career and Journalism
Before starting her career as a journalist, Setalvad pursued her bachelor's in Philosophy from Bombay University. Later, as a journalist, she worked for the newspaper The Indian Express and the magazine Business India. Her career as a journalist, however, was short-lived and she went on, along with her husband Javed Anand, to start a magazine called Communalism Combat in 1993.
Activism
Though Setalvad spent almost a decade in journalism, she is most well-known for her work as an activist fighting against communalism and for civil rights. Other than working for the victims of the 2002 violence, she has undertaken numerous projects including Khoj, an effort t rewrite the Indian school textbooks to filter out the biases and prejudices against minorities. Throughout her career as an activist, she has been vocal about the causes of Dalits and Muslims.
Together with Zakia Jafri —wife of Ehsan Jafri, a Congress leader who was killed during the 2002 riots — Setalvad and her organisation filed a plea in the Supreme Court against the then chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. The Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, upheld the Special Investigation Team’s clean chit to Modi and 63 others and termed the plea as “devoid of merit”.
Arrest
A day after the Supreme Court dismissed the plea against Narendra Modi and others in the 2002 riots, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad arrested Teesta Setalvad from her Mumbai residence. She was detained in connection with an FIR filed in Ahmedabad on charges of “criminal conspiracy, forgery, and placing false evidence in court to frame innocents” in the 2002 riots case. Her arrest sparked protests at multiple places in the country and also an international outcry, demanding her release.