Gujarat police and IB killed Ishrat, three others in 'cold blood', CBI says
AHMEDABAD:
The CBI has charged the Narendra Modi government and the Intelligence Bureau with the fake encounter of 19-year-old Mumbra college student Ishrat Jahan and three others in June 2004. In its chargesheet filed on Wednesday, the CBI said Ishrat Jahan was branded a terrorist out to kill Modi and shot the four in "cold blood".
The CBI chargesheet turns the heat on the Modi government as well as the IB. Although no IB officer has been named, it has accused the agency of providing the weapons to place them on the bodies of the encounter victims. The CBI will file a second chargesheet on July 26, and there are expectations that some IB officers may be named then. Modi and his close aide Amit Shah have not been named in the chargesheet.
"The four were taken to a place near Kotarpur waterworks, the encounter spot, on the outskirts of the city on June 15, 2004 and were killed in cold blood," says 1,500-page chargesheet which was filed in the court of additional chief judicial magistrate H S Khutwad.
The accused include absconding additional DGP P P Pandey and DIG D G Vanzara, who is already charged with murder in Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounters. The others are, G L Singhal, N K Amin, Tarun Barot, J G Parmar, constables Anaju Chaudhary and Mohan Kalasawa - the last one having died in between. Singhal has apparently cooperated with the CBI during the probe and helped the agency achieve some crucial breakthroughs.
The chargesheet called the killing a joint operation of the Gujarat police and the IB. The role of Rajinder Kumar, who was then the state IB boss and now IB special director, was still being probed to ascertain whether he generated a fake terror alert that led to the encounter.
The accused have been charged with criminal conspiracy, abduction, illegal detention, murder, disobeying law and forging documents. The chargesheet describes the incident through testimonies of 179 witnesses.
It describes how Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana were abducted and kept in confinement. The chargesheet said weapons were procured by the Gujarat police crime branch officers from the state IB office, and describes how the encounter was staged.
This is the third case of fake encounter of alleged terrorist in Gujarat alone which the CBI has said.
The CBI believes Zeeshan was brought to Ahmedabad by Rajinder Kumar's aides-Owais and Asad-and kept at Gota on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on April 25. It also mentions that Rana was kept at Arham farm and brought him to the scene of crime blindfolded.
The chargesheet claims that the FIR was written by Vanzara before the killing, and certain space was kept blank to be filled in later. Pandey was also present there. The document mentions how Kumar, Vanzara and Pandey conspired on June 14 to carry out the encounter the next day.
It adds that Gujarat crime branch officers, Amin and Barot, had taken Ishrat and Javed Sheikh into custody on June 12 from a toll booth at Vasad in Anand district with the help of N K Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede of the IB. It claimed the four were in custody of Gujarat police and Ishrat and Javed were, in fact, interrogated by a joint team of Gujarat police and subsidiary intelligence bureau, which included Kumar, at a farmhouse on the city outskirts where they were kept in confinement.
"On June 13, 2004 Vanzara, Pandey, Kumar and Amin had gone to the farm house and interrogated Ishrat and Javed," the chargesheet said, adding that the other two were also brought to Ahmedabad before the encounter was staged and were kept at separate locations
Gujarat police and IB killed Ishrat, three others in 'cold blood', CBI says - The Times of India
