A warning to rights activists.

IT took the US supreme court about half a century to overturn its own ruling on the abortion rights of women. It took India's supreme court around half that time to swap its views about Prime Minister Modi's governance style in his avatar as chief minister when the anti-Muslim carnage rocked Gujarat and the country.

Caught in the transition from one opinion to another are leading human rights activist Teesta Setalvad and two former top cops from Gujarat. The three want Mr Modi tried for alleged complicity in the pogrom, which he denies. Ms Setalvad was arrested from her Mumbai home on Saturday, taken to Ahmedabad by the Gujarat police where a magistrate put her on police remand until Friday. Ditto with former DIG-turned-whistleblower R.B. Sreekumar. He was picked up from his Ahmedabad home and remanded to police custody. Another former cop Sanjeev Bhatt is in prison in an unrelated case after he spoke up against Mr Modi. A fresh FIR has been slapped on him. Police action is expected to widen and is rooted in a decision by the supreme court that gave Mr Modi what his followers have been claiming for him - a clean chit.

Mr Modi's name was cleared in the sense that a three-member bench last week dismissed the petition by Zakia Jafri whose husband was cut down with swords before her eyes. The court noted that the material on record had failed to show that a larger conspiracy was hatched at a higher level.

'Suffice it to observe that there is no tittle of material, much less tangible material to support the plea of the appellant... .' If anything, there was a coalesced effort by disgruntled officials of the state of Gujarat to create sensation by making revelations that were false to their own knowledge, the justices said.

Caught in the transition from one opinion to another are leading human rights activist Teesta Setalvad and two former top cops from Gujarat.

'Intriguingly, the present proceedings have been pursued for last 16 years including with the audacity to question the integrity of every functionary involved in the process of exposing the devious stratagem adopted (to borrow the submission of learned counsel for the SIT), to keep the pot boiling, obviously, for an ulterior design. As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law,' the court observed.

And thus Ms Setalvad and Mr Sreekumar found themselves in police custody. What did the supreme court say...