Jailed former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's children write a heart-touching message to their dad on Father's Day.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Dr Aakashi Bhatt and Shantanu Bhatt, children of a former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Gujarat cadre and incarcerated for life for taking on the perpetrators of hate and violence during the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom, have written a long essay opening their hearts out.
Sanjiv Bhatt was awarded a life sentence on 20 June 2019 by the Sessions Court of Jamnagar District in Gujarat in a 1990 custodial death case.
They took to Twitter on Father’s Day (June 18) to express their unflinching support to their father in his quest for justice.
Dr Aakashi was among the hundreds of Indian Americans and their allies who gathered in Washington, D.C., this week to stage a demonstration against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “assault on democratic values and ongoing human rights violations.”
The protest was organised by the Coalition for Reclaiming Indian Democracy, a collective of civil rights and interfaith organisations, media reports said.
“Democracy as we know it has ceased to exist in India,” said Dr Aakashi.
“My father sacrificed twenty-one years of his life to relentlessly fight for the thousands who are incarcerated and victimised by [the Modi] regime,” she claimed. “As a society, we cannot let the sacrifices of our heroes go to waste. We need to raise a unified voice against Modi.”
Dr Aakashi’s message on Twitter on Father’s Day bemoaned the fact that she was commemorating the event far away from her father. She wrote: “Two days ago marked the 4th Father’s Day when we remained separated from each other by this draconian regime .. and today marks the 4th year of your vitiated incarceration …. 5 years of you languishing in jail for a crime you did not commit.
“As I walked through the overwhelming surge of nostalgic memories that washed over me yesterday while I reminisced the very many Father’s days we celebrated together, my mind wandered on to today, 20th of June, the day when our lives turned into an unending nightmare.
“Memories of 20th June 2019 washed over me; how the court, subverted by this regime, even before starting the trial had already pre-decided the outcome. How the court blatantly disregarded due process and continued to carry out an ex-parte vitiated trial, not taking into account any evidence, disallowing us to bring in defence witnesses.
“An absolute mockery of the justice system was made to protect the political duo and to ensure that your voice was silenced.”
She said five years on they continue to face yet another “vitiated trial, yet another attempt by this regime to silence you at any and every cost.”
Dr Aakashi recalled that she has been writing these messages since she was separated from her father. “With every passing year, for each special day we remain separated, I write these posts in the hope that one day soon, you will read them from the comfort of our home … These dark times are a distant memory of the past.”
The pain and anguish of a daughter are almost palpable when she writes: “So I sit down and pen my thoughts, all that we couldn’t say to you on the day …. words unsaid, moments unfelt, memories which we couldn’t make …
“Dad, I hope you know that you have, and continue to be the only person Shan and I strive to be every single day of our lives.”
Eulogising the jailed father, Dr Aakashi described her father as “our courage, the sane voice of reason in our hearts, our north star, our very heartbeat!
No words can truly justify how immensely proud we are for having you as our father…
Thank you for being the father we can only ever hope to deserve.”
Lamenting the failure of a collective conscience of the nation she said, “Today, as we mark the 4th year of your wrongful conviction, 5th year of your vindictive incarceration, I cannot help but wonder if we as a family and we as a nation failed you.
“You defended the voiceless, the thousands of victims of hate and violence, but when the time came to defend the defender, the very society you put your life on the line for, watched in deafening silence, paralysed in apathy, fear and in some cases greed.
“You fought bravely, relentlessly, for over two decades, but we failed to protect you.
We failed you as a nation when we stood in silence, while an example was being made of an exemplary upright officer.”
Her tweet continued: “21 years down the line, we stand battered, bruised and bloodied, but your resolve to bring justice for the victims of the pogrom, to hold the people responsible for orchestrating the genocide remain absolute.
“Today marks the 1750th day of your unjust incarceration …
Our fight for justice continues …
As you always say:
We will fight, we will resist, will we overcome … this I am certain!”
_________
Photo: Sanjiv Bhatt and his children
