On December 21, 2025, Aakashi and Shantanu Bhatt, the children of Sanjiv Bhatt, IPS officer, sent their father birthday greetings through social media platforms. The celebrated police officer has been in jail over the past eight years. On record, the charges against him are many, but large sections of the Indian population believe that the “primary crime” that Bhatt committed was to take a resolute position against certain actions of Narendra Modi. As an officer, Bhatt has taken a stand against the political might of the Narendra Modi led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime, right from the period Modi was chief Minister of Gujarat. Now, Modi has occupied the Prime Minister’s position for the past 11 years, and Bhatt has spent eight of those years in incarceration. In this context, the birthday greetings of Aakashi and Shantanu Bhatt over social media have had a unique and widespread appeal.
This moving letter by the children of Bhatt is not merely a birthday message to their father, it is a testament to how a struggle for justice is carried forward across generations. While the state has sought to imprison Sanjiv Bhatt through prolonged judicial injustice, his conscience, courage and resistance have found continuity in his family—most powerfully in his children.
Aakashi and Shantanu speak from within the long shadow of incarceration, bearing witness to the slow violence of persecution while refusing to inherit silence or fear. Their words reflect how Sanjiv Bhatt’s moral stand against communal violence and abuse of power has shaped them into inheritors of his resolve, transforming personal loss into collective resistance. In giving voice to their father’s continued absence, they assert that the fight for truth does not end at prison walls; it is carried forward with clarity, strategy and unwavering determination.
Published here, this letter stands as a reminder that authoritarian injustice does not only target individuals—it seeks to break families and futures. In the Bhatt family, it has failed. What survives is a legacy of courage, now carried by the next generation, demanding accountability, justice and freedom.
This is Aakashi & Shantanu Bhatt,
Dearest Dad,
You turn 62 today … your 8th Birthday away from us, 8 years of absence imposed not by fate, but by deliberate injustice.
Eight years in which we as a family have been living parallel lives, us inside prison walls with you, and you living vicariously through us… physically separated but all the while connected with one another in heart and spirit, fighting for each other’s happiness, being each other’s, strength, suit of armour and never-ending resilience.
There are days when words feel inadequate, today is one of those days … not because there is nothing to say, but because there is far too much. Too much loss carried in silence. Too much waiting that has stretched into injustice. Too much pain born from events that should never have been allowed to unfold. Too much that should never have happened to an upright officer who sacrificed his entire being to fight for justice for the victims of hate and violence.
Over these years, we have watched the slow violence of judicial injustice unfold, not as a single event, but as a continuous process. Trumped up charges created not for truth, but to silence the voice of truth. Procedures stretched until fairness collapsed under their weight. Time itself weaponised against you and against us. Each delay, each denial, each indifference extracting its price, emotionally, mentally and physically.
Despite it all, Dad, you have carried yourself through these years with a quiet dignity and strength that no verdict can diminish. While injustice has tried to define you through numbers, files, and false accusations, you have remained exactly who you always were, principled, brave, and unwavering. Even behind walls meant to confine you, your moral authority and courage have travelled freely, far beyond courtrooms, beyond prisons, beyond the reach of those who tried to bury it.
History will forget these excuses of men, who abused their power to silence your voice of truth, but you, Dad, will always be remembered as a man who chose conscience over comfort, truth over self-preservation, and courage over compliance … the one who stood firm when the cost was unbearable.
As your children, we have not been shaped by weakness or loss. We have been shaped by your example!
We have learned clarity from your clarity. Courage from your courage. And strength not as an act of survival, but as an act of defiance.
Let it be known… Ours is not a family defined by suffering, it is a family defined by resolve!
Every year of injustice, every year of separation, has only sharpened our focus. Every attempt to wear us down has strengthened our determination. We fight not emotionally, but strategically. Not loudly, but relentlessly.
Dad, please know, your sacrifice is not invisible… It is not futile, and it will not go unanswered!
There will come a day when the truth that has been suppressed will stand exposed. When history will ask who abused power, and who paid the price for refusing to surrender their conscience… and you will be remembered, clearly, deliberately, and permanently as a man of integrity who stood for truth when it mattered most.
Today, on your 62nd birthday, silence is no longer an option. While defenders of society were targeted, society looked away. Today, we call on it to wake up… to stand where it once retreated, to speak where it once stayed quiet, and to act for accountability and justice without delay.
Dad, the day isn’t far when you will walk free, vindicated, unbowed, and victorious! But till then, know this without doubt: you are not alone, not for a moment. We, your family and tens and thousands of your supporters stand right beside you… as your pillars of strength, unwavering, fearless, and unshakeable!
You will return home not as someone who quietly endured injustice, but as someone who confronted it, exposed it, and emerged undefeated!
And we promise, you will never be defeated… Not Now… Not Ever. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Dad.
We love you to infinity and beyond!
Endlessly proud of you!!
Yours,
Aakashi & Shantanu
#JusticeforSanjivBhatt #FreeSanjivBhatt #EnoughIsEnough
