Three days after the Gujarat High Court asked the state government for a list of Additional Director Generals (ADGs) of police for setting up a panel to probe afresh into Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan’s killing, her family says they are unsure if the order will help in “establishing the truth”.

On June 15, 2004, Ishrat, a 19-year-old student of Khalsa College, and three others were gunned down by a team of Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) while they were travelling to Gujarat in a car. She and the three others — Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai of Mumbai and two alleged Pakistani nationals Amjad Ali Rana and Jisan Johar—¿ were suspected as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives.

While rejecting one of the pleas made by the family for a CBI enquiry, the Gujarat High Court on Friday asked for a list of all the ADGs in the state to explore the possibility of setting up a three-member committee for a fresh investigation into Ishrat’s killing. However, the family is not sure if the move would yield any result. “They were the same state police who killed her. We don’t know if this time too the police will just brand her as a terrorist all over again,” said Ishrat’s elder sister Zeenat Jahan.

Though the state police had stated that the group was on a deadly mission to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the family alleges that the encounter was fake. “The encounter was staged and there was a larger political modus-operandi working behind it. It’s not for the first time that police had staged fake encounters. They have mentioned that two persons with her were Pakistani, what proofs have the police furnished before the court?” asked Ishrat’s mother Shameema, who in 2004 had moved a petition before the High Court seeking CBI enquiry along with compensation.

... contd.