Ishrat encounter: SIT submits its complaint with CBI

Verma’s complaint annexes the 22-page report which the SIT last submitted to the Gujarat High Court,after which the case went to the CBI.

The 2004 FIR on the Ishrat Jahan encounter lodged by then police inspector JG Parmar had elaborated on the various roles played by 18 officers,right from the intelligence input on Ishrat Jahan and the three others,to their killing. However,in the SIT probe so far,all these officers,Parmar included,were treated as suspects.

SIT chief Verma,who is the complainant in the new FIR,told the Indian Express over phone from Delhi, “We have submitted the report and handed over the case to the CBI. The CBI will probe further into the criminality and culpability of the persons involved in the encounter.”

Sources in the CBI said,“The SIT has given us a report that will be treated as a complaint for the FIR,which is likely to be file tomorrow.”

If the CBI goes by the original FIR,then some police officers likely to be under the scanner are former Director General of Police K R Kaushik,additional DGP PP Pandey,suspended IPS officers DG Vanzara,GL Singhal,and deputy superintendents of police NK Amin and Tarun Barot. Vanzara and Amin are lodged at the Sabarmati Central Jail in connection with the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. Deputy inspector general of police Arun Bothra of the CBI will supervise the new probe,which will be carried out by superintendent of police Vinay Kumar. Kumar is already handling the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati encounter probes.

The SIT’s report to the Gujarat High Court confirmed that Ishrat and the three others were killed in a fake encounter at Kotarpur Waterworks in Ahmedabad on June 15,2004. All the SIT members,chief RR Verma,ADGP Mohan Jha and IGP Satish Verma were present at the CBI office in Delhi to submit the complaint.

Ishrat was killed along with her partner Javed alias Pranesh Pillai and two alleged Pakistanis,Zeeshan Johar and Amzad Ali Rana who were branded as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

In the original FIR,the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch had claimed that K R Kaushik had received a tip-off 15 days before the encounter from the Intelligence Bureau sources that four LeT terrorists had entered Gujarat to kill Modi.

Parmar said in his FIR that Kaushik had shared the input only with Vanzara,Pandey and Singhal and assigned them the special vigilance task.

On June 14,2004,the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch JCP Pandey received information through a “source” that Javed and two LeT terrorists in Blue Tata Indica car MH 2 JM 4786 were entering Ahmedabad to go to CM’s residence in Gandhinagar. After the tip-off,a briefing was held by Vanzara and the officers were given their tasks.

The FIR also mentions the names of the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch commandos and policemen who pulled the trigger,including of key suspects Singhal and Barot.