NEW DELHI: Gujarat police have filed an FIR for alleged cheating and criminal conspiracy against anti-communal activist Teesta Setalvad and several heirs of men and women who were killed by mobs in the Gulberg Society of Ahmedabad in 2002, The Indian Express said on Sunday.

The paper reported that Ahmedabad city’s Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) had registered the FIR against Ms Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand, son of slain Congress MP Ehsan Jafri Tanvir Jafri and two other survivors of 2002 Gulberg Society Massacre case accusing them of breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy. Terming the FIR “vindictive action” by Gujarat Police, Ms Setalvad has said the “timing of the FIR, replete with a threat of arrests” is part of “efforts to prevent prompt filing of appeal in the Zakia Jafri case against Narendra Modi and 59 others”. Last month, a magisterial court had cleared the Gujarat chief minister and others over their alleged involvement in the 2002 riots.

However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Mr Modi of presiding over the massacre of innocent citizens in the anti-Muslim pogroms.

Apart from Ms Setalvad, Mr Anand and Mr Jafri, the other two accused in the FIR have been identified as Salim Sandhi and Feroz Gulzar Mohammed Pathan, chairman and secretary of Gulberg Society. Both of them lost five members of their families in the massacre.

DCB officials have booked the five under various penal sections of the IPC and the Information Technology Act while acting on a complaint lodged by one Feroz Saeedkhan Pathan who used to live in Gulberg Society during 2002 riots.

The case is being investigated by Assistant Commissioner of Police, K.N. Patel. According to him, the complainant has alleged that the accused had grabbed photographs and video footage of Gulberg Society and other riot-hit areas of Gujarat and put it on two websites.