Congress slams Centre, claims party members not allowed to speak on Ishrat Jahan in Parliament

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday hit out at the government for "not allowing" party leaders to speak on the Ishrat Jahan case during the Budget Session of Parliament.

"The Ishrat Jahan case was allowed for discussion during the Parliament proceedings but it was arbitrary that only the BJP and their supporters were allowed. Congress leaders and Congress speakers were not allowed to speak on that," Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told mediapersons in New Delhi.

"It is only to subvert the criminal case pending before the CBI court as against a number of officers and others in Gujarat and it is clear as to how discussion can take place when the chargesheet is pending," he added.

Ishrat Jahan. IBNLive

"The judicial magistrate also found that this was a fake encounter and couldn't say whether they were connected with the terrorists or not. The SIT clearly found, after taking evidence and taking confessional statement that it was a fake encounter. That is the position they wanted to disturb."

"The matter even went to the High Court and Supreme Court. Everybody upheld that it was a fake encounter. One-sided discussion has taken place. This was a black day for the Lok Sabha," he added.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday ordered an 'internal inquiry' to probe how files concerning the affidavits filed in the Ishrat Jahan case have gone missing.

Former home secretary GK Pillai had also claimed that there was "political interference" in the case which led to the deletion of reference to Lashkar-e-Taiba from the revised affidavit filed in 2009.

On 10 March, the home minister had told the Lok Sabha that "two letters from the then home secretary to the attorney general in 2009 have gone missing. The then attorney general had vetted two affidavits regarding the case. Those are also not available".

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and home ministry officials had alleged recently that the UPA government did a flip flop over the controversial 2004 shootout in which Ishrat, then a student of a Mumbai college and allegedly a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative, was killed.

IANS