Sanjiv Bhatt is a former IPS officer who joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1988 from the Gujarat cadre. He came to the publics attention after filing several affidavits in the Supreme Court against the alleged role of the Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government in instigating the 2002 Gujarat riots.In 1985, after completing his M.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Sanjiv Bhatt started preparing for the UPSC examination.In 1988, Sanjiv Bhatt cleared the UPSC examination and joined the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVPNPA) in Telangana. Later, in the same year, Sanjiv Bhatt was commissioned as an IPS in the Gujarat cadre.In 1990, Sanjiv Bhatt was given his first posting in Jamnagar as an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP).In the same year, there were protests amidst the senior BJP leader L. K. Advanis rath yatra through the city that led to an outbreak of communal violence in Jamnagar. Sanjiv Bhatt and the police force under his command took 150 people under preventive custody to stop the widespread violence in the city and to restore law and order in the city of Jamnagar.Sanjiv Bhatt was given a promotion in 1996, and he was made a Superintendent of Police (SP). After his promotion, he was posted to the Banaskantha district of Gujarat.In 1999, Sanjiv Bhatt was promoted to the rank of Deputy Commissioner, and he was sent to Gandhinagar to take charge of the states Intelligence Bureau (IB). As a Deputy Commissioner, Sanjiv was in charge of maintaining the security of the coastal areas, the internal areas of Gujarat, and the high-value state installations. He was also given the charge of the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modis security. He remained in the states Intelligence Bureau (IB) till the end of the 2002 Gujarat riots. A photograph of Sanjiv Bhatt in his uniform.In 2002, after the end of the Gujarat riots, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) accused the then CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, of mocking the high birth rate among the Muslim community in Gujarat, which, according to the commission, came under hate speech. The commission demanded that the state authorities should hand over Narendra Modis speech transcripts, as evidence of hate speech, to them. In response, the state denied having any records of the speech.In 2002, Sanjiv Bhatt and his senior R. B. Sreekumar presented a copy of the transcript before the commission, as a result of which, both Sanjiv and Sreekumar were shunted and sent on punishment postings by the Gujarat government. [19]Rediff.com A state IB officer, in an interview, said, There were attempts by the state government to make the bureau withhold the cassette from the Intelligence Bureau headquarters in Gandhinagar to prevent it from becoming a part of the official records against the Chief Minister..In 2002, after falling out of favour with the Gujarat government, Sanjiv Bhatt was sent on irrelevant postings. He was sent to the State Reserve Police Training College (SRPTC) in Junagadh in 2002, as a Principal.