Ishrat Jahan case: Accused cops demand more documents from CBI

Ahmedabad: Two accused police officers, chargesheeted by CBI in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case, on Thursday sought copies of all previous statements of witnesses as recorded by the earlier probing agencies. The accused police officers, GL Singhal and Tarun Barot, today filed an application through their advocate Brijrajsinh Jhala, before the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) H S Khutwad, who fixed the hearing on 5 August. [caption id=“attachment_1002819” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ishrat Jahan. IBNLive[/caption] Six accused policemen in the case, out of seven who were named in the charge sheet filed by CBI on 4 July, have been provided copies of various documents along with the charge sheet by the central investigating agency. However, Singhal and Barot claimed in their application that copies of the previous statements, recorded under section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code(CrPC) of various witnesses by the earlier probing agencies like DCB Crime Branch, Ahmedabad and SIT (which had earlier investigated the case under High Court order), have not been provided to them. Citing 21 such witnesses whose statements were recorded both by CBI and earlier investigating agencies, the two accused have sought direction from the court to CBI to provide those statements to them. Mumbai girl Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were gunned down on 15 June, 2004 on the city’s outskirts. Crime Branch had then claimed the four were terrorists on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The CBI, which probed the case, in its charge sheet termed the encounter as “fake” and a joint operation between Gujarat police and IB. The agency named seven senior Gujarat police officials as accused and charged them with murder and criminal conspiracy. PTI