"The encounter was a joint operation between Gujarat police and Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in the State.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation’s first charge sheet in the nine-year-old Ishrat Jahan encounter case filed on Wednesday stated that the unlawful killing was a joint operation of the Gujarat police and the Intelligence Bureau and named seven State police officials as the accused.
The agency, which submitted its charge sheet at a crowded court room in
the Special CBI court here, has not fixed charges against four IB
officials allegedly involved in the conspiracy, saying it needed more
time for investigation.
But the names of the IB officials — Special Director Rajinder Kumar,
Assistant Director (Ahmedabad) M. K. Sinha, Deputy Superintendent of
Police Rajeev Wankhede and P Mittal — figure in the charge sheet as
those who allegedly facilitated the killing by generating fake
intelligence inputs as well as by being present at the crime scene.
Gujarat police officers involved in the staged encounter and the joint
police commissioner heading the crime branch then, P. P. Pandey, have
for the record stated that it was the IB alert that a Lashkar-e-Taiba
module was out to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi that
triggered the shooting.
The chargesheet states that the college girl Ishrat and three others
were abducted and then killed in a staged encounter by officers and men
of the Ahmedabad Crime branch.
As the team of CBI counsel arrived at 5 pm in the court of Additional
Chief Judicial Magistrate H. S. Khutwad in the presence of hordes of
journalists waiting since morning, it told the judge that the charge
sheet was quite bulky and could not be brought to the court room but
would be verified in the records room.
The CBI counsel read out the operative part from a summary and completed
the verification process after over an hour. The Gujarat police
officials chargesheeted are Additional Director General of Police P. P.
Pandey, Deputy Inspector General of Police D. G. Vanzara and
Superintendents of Police N. K. Amin, G. L. Singhal, J. G. Parmar and
Tarun Barot. Besides them, the name of a commando Anaju Chaudhary also
figures in the document.
The cops have been charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping,
illegal confinement and destruction of evidence. Sections of the Arms
Act have also been imposed on them. The CBI has found no charges against
nine cops whose statements it had recorded under Section 169 of the
Criminal Procedure Code.
A CBI counsel told The Hindu that there would be a supplementary
chargesheet against the IB officials and others, though he refrained
from saying if any politicians had been named. He said there was no time
frame to file the second document.
Contrary to media speculation, the first chargesheet neither refers to
then Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, who is now the BJP general
secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, nor the Gujarat Chief Minister.
The chargesheet has not been released to the media but, according to
sources, says that when the victims were in illegal confinement, D. G.
Vanzara, P. P. Pandey, Rajinder Kumar and N. K. Amin had grilled them.
Later Pandey, Vanzara and Rajinder Kumar planned the plot at Vanzara's bungalow.
In April 2004, Jeeshan Jowher and Amjad Ali were picked up while Javed
alias Pranesh Pillai and Ishrat Jahan were picked up in June.
It says, among many other things, that following instructions from D. G.
Vanzara, police officer G. L. Singhal picked up a bag full of weapons
and handed it to over constable Nizammuddin, who passed it on to Tarun
Barot.
The charge sheet says the weapons were later planted on the victims.
Later Singhal was called to the ATS office in Shahibaug where Vanzara
and Pandey were present. Vanzara was in possession of a draft FIR about
the shootout.
(copy has been corrected for a factual error.)
