Ishrat case: ex IB Special Director seeks copy of chargesheet

Ahmedabad: Former Special Director of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Rajinder Kumar, who was charged by CBI with murder and criminal conspiracy in Ishrat Jahan encounter case, today approached a special court and sought a copy of the supplementary charge sheet. However, the court directed him to come next week stating that the charge sheet copy filed by CBI was being verified. [caption id=“attachment_1379103” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ishrat Jahan. IBNLive image[/caption] Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had yesterday charged Rajinder Kumar with murder and criminal conspiracy in the 2004 encounter case, while accusing three other serving officers of criminal conspiracy and other offences but left out Amit Shah, a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who was under the scanner in the case. Kumar, through his advocate, approached the court today to obtain a copy of charge sheet. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate H S Khutwad of CBI court told Kumar’s counsel that the charge sheet was under verification process and directed him to come on Monday. Nearly a decade after Ishrat was murdered along with her friend Javed Sheikh, alias Pranesh Pillai, in Gujarat and two others, believed to be Pakistani nationals, CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet naming Kumar, who was Joint Director of IB posted in Gujarat at that time. He was charged with 120-B (criminal conspiracy) for 302 (murder) and other sections of the Indian Penal Code besides various provisions of the Arms Act. Along with Kumar, those named in the charge sheet are serving officers T Mittal, M K Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede who have been booked for criminal conspiracy, wrongful confinement, kidnapping and wrongful concealment besides various sections of the Arms Act. CBI went ahead with the charge sheet against the IB officers notwithstanding the denial of sanction of prosecution by the Law Ministry which had stated that the evidence was not enough. CBI alleged in its supplementary charge sheet that Kumar handed over arms and ammunition to Singhal of Gujarat police who onpassed the weapons to Deputy SP Tarun Barot through Nizamuddin Sayeed. These arms and ammunition were allegedly used in executing the crime. In its first charge sheet filed in the case on July 3 last year, CBI had named the four IB officers but not identified them as suspects, while terming the encounter as fake and a joint operation by IB and Gujarat Police. IPS officers D G Vanzara, P P Pandey, Girish Singhal, besides Barot, N K Amin, J G Parmar and Anaju Chaudhary had been named as accused. CBI had said Ishrat and others were in the custody of Gujarat police before being killed and, in fact, she and Javed had been interrogated by Kumar at a farmhouse on the outskirts of city where they were kept in confinement. All the four were taken to the encounter spot near Kotarpur Waterworks blind-folded on June 15, 2004 before being shot dead in cold blood, CBI had said. PTI