New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday maintained that 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan was killed in a fake encounter in a joint operation between the Gujarat Police and the Intelligence Bureau. CNN-IBN has learnt that the CBI will file a status report in the Gujarat High Court, saying it needs more time to investigate a conspiracy angle.
The CBI is also looking for one of Gujarat's senior-most police officers, PP Pande, who is absconding and is allegedly a crucial link. Meanwhile, sources say that the Gujarat government will move for the suspension of Pande after CBI's chargesheet.
In its first chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, the CBI on Wednesday said the 19-year-old girl along with three others - Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar - was killed in cold blood by the Gujarat Police on June 15, 2004.
The CBI also told a court in Ahmedabad that the agency has evidence to prove that the four were illegally detained and kept in confinement. It added that Ishrat and the three others were tranquilized before being killed.
The chargesheet, however, remained silent on whether the four were terrorists. The Gujarat Police had claimed that Ishrat and three others were a part of a Lashkar-e-Toiba module which was planning to assassinate state Chief Minister Narendra Modi. But the CBI made it clear that it has found no evidence which can establish that they had come to Gujarat to kill Modi.
The investigative agency named eight Gujarat police officers including absconding Additional DGP PP Pandey, suspended DIG DG Vanzara, suspended IPS officer GL Singhal charging them with criminal conspiracy, abduction, wrongful confinement and murder. "The encounter was a joint operation between Gujarat Police and Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) of the state," the CBI said in the chargesheet, adding "the encounter was fake".
According to the CBI, IB officer Rajinder Kumar was heading state investigation bureau during the period when the encounter was carried out. But he has not been named in the chargesheet. Investigation is going on against four Intelligence Bureau officers, including its Special Director Rajendra Kumar, and three other officers - P Mittal, MK Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede, it said.
But the biggest relief has come for the Gujarat Chief Minister and his aide Amit Shah as the CBI has not named them in its chargesheet.
Reacting to the chargesheet, Ishrat's family said this was only a partial victory. They refuted BJP's allegations of Ishrat being a terrorist. "Ishrat cannot be a terrorist. She was a sincere student in college. A student as sincere as her cannot be a terrorist," said Ishrat's sister Musarat Jahan.
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