Ishrat Jahan case: Former Home Secy GK Pillai claims 'political' interference in 2004 encounter

In what could be a significant development in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case, former home secretary GK Pillai on Thursday revealed that someone at the political level did not want the real picture to come out, in an interview with  Times Now. [caption id=“attachment_2622376” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ishrat Jahan. IBNLive[/caption] Pillai mentioned that two affidavits submitted by the home ministry in relation to the case were contradictory to each other. “One of the affidavits mentioned that (the people who were killed) were LeT operatives, while in the other one that aspect was deleted,” Pillai was quoted saying in a report by The  Times of India. “We had nothing to do with it, it was done at a political level,” Pillai was further reported to have said. The two affidavits were submitted when the UPA government was in power. According to a report published by  DNA, Pillai said Ishrat could be an unwitting player in the hands of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and favoured a probe into the statement of David Headley on her terror links. However, Pillai agreed the operation to lure LeT to send their members to India was a successful one. The fact that the authorities could monitor their activities and later nab was a ‘very successful operation from the intelligence standpoint’, he said., as per a report by Zee News. The former home secretary said there was no doubt that those killed in the alleged fake encounter in Gujarat had links with Lashkar-e-Taiba. “They were LeT activists. She (Ishrat) knew that something was wrong. Otherwise an unmarried young Muslim woman would not have gone with some other men,” he said. Ishrat Jahan was one among four people killed in an alleged fake encounter case in 2004. Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai besides two Pakistani nationals viz. Amjad Ali and Jishan Johar Abdul Ghani,  all alleged LeT terrorists, were also killed in the encounter. The case had been a major point of controversy. With inputs from PTI