Gopinath Pillai, petitioner in Ishrat Jahan encounter case, dies in road accident in Kerala; police initiates probe

Alappuzha (Kerala): A petitioner in the June 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake shootout case was killed in a road accident in Alappuzha on Friday. Kerala Police have started a probe. [caption id=“attachment_2827868” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Ishrat Jahan. PTI[/caption] MR Gopinathan Pillai died when the car he was travelling in collided with a lorry. “We are leaving nothing to chance and all aspects of the accident are being thoroughly probed,” said an officer, who did not wish to be identified. Pillai was the father of Javed Ghulam Shaikh, alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, who was one of the three others killed by the Gujarat Police along with Ishrat Jahan on the outskirts of Ahmadabad in June 2004. “It’s too early at this moment to come to any sort of conclusion on the accident. An FIR has been registered and the probe has begun,” the officer said. Speaking to IANS, a police officer attached to the Pattanakad police station said: “Pillai was on his way to a hospital for a check-up when his car met with the accident.” The 78-year-old Pillai, a retired teacher had heaved a sigh of relief after the Special Investigation Team submitted to the Gujarat High Court in 2011 that his son was killed in a fake shootout. Pillai then reacted that he was a much relieved man because no one would call him the father of a terrorist — as the Gujarat Police had dubbed his son. Shaikh had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman. The Gujarat Police had then alleged that Ishrat and the three others were Leshkar-e-Taiba activists on a mission to kill then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.