Ishrat Jahan was abducted, drugged, murdered: CBI chargesheet

The CBI in its first chargesheet in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case, filed before the Additional Judicial Magistrate in Ahmadabad,  has said that the encounter was indeed fake and she was wrongfully confined, tranquilised and murdered in cold blood. The chargesheet has also named eight Gujarat policemen including DG Vanzara, Tarun Barot, JR Parmar, NK Amin. However it does not mention Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi or Amit Shah. [caption id=“attachment_925927” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ishrat Jahan. Ibnlive[/caption] The chargesheet filed by CBI in a local court, which also raises questions over the role of Intelligence Bureau, does not say whether the girl from Mumbai and three others killed with her were terrorists saying there was no mandate from the High Court to investigate their status. It says that all of them were abducted and kept in illegal confinement before the encounter. The CBI also says that it enough has evidence to prove that it was a cold blooded murder and that Ishrat and the others were drugged before being killed. Cops were deployed across Ahmadabad to cover up the encounter, it added. The chargesheet states that Gujarat IPS officer DG Vanzara and others picked up weapons — an AK 47 and two 9 mm pistols — from the Intelligence Bureau which were later planted on Ishrat and the others’ bodies after they were killed. The CBI also has asked the court for more time to investigate IB officer Rajender Kumar’s role in the encounter. Legal counsel for the CBI, SK Saiyaad, said that the investigating agency has said that Ishrat Jahan and her male companion Javed were taken into confinement illegally by Intelligence Bureau officials and were killed after interrogation. “Intelligence Bureau officials Rajeev Wankhede and MK Sinha had abducted them and kept them in confinement,” Saiyaad said. Another senior IB official Rajender Kumar and other accused Gujarat Police officials then went to the location where they were kept, interrogated them and killed them, he added. Among the sections under which the accused in the case have been charged include criminal conspiracy, illegal confinement and other sections, Saiyaad said. The CBI has also said that its investigating three more Intelligence Bureau officials: Rajeev Wankhede, MK Sinha and Rajender Kumar, and are carrying out further investigations in this regard. Ishrat Jahan’s mother’s lawyer Mukul Sinha said that the CBI has not taken action against Gujarat’s top police officials. Ishrat Jahan, Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed on 15 June, 2004. The CBI told the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate H S Khutwad that their investigation has established offence against all the seven police officers charge sheeted in the case. Investigation is going on against four Intelligence Bureau officers, including its Special Director Rajinder Kumar, and three other officers– P Mittal, M K Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede, it said. A supplementary charge sheet would be filed against IB officers once the investigation was over, the court was told. The chargesheet, which is bound to open a can of worms, is the first instance in Gujarat encounter cases where the IB has been implicated, saying that Intelligence Bureau officials were involved from the time of abduction, to illegal confinement and killing of the four people. The charge sheet, which runs into more than 1,500 pages, including 179 witnesses’ statements, says the conspiracy to kill the four was hatched by Pandey, Vanzara and Kumar. “After securing illegal custody of Ishrat, Javed, Zeeshan and Amjad Ali, P P Pandey, Rajendra Kumar and Vanzara met at latter’s bunglow and planned the encounter,” says the chargesheet. Elaborating on how Javed and Ishrat were abducted and taken into illegal custody, the charge sheet says crime branch officer Amin and Barot had taken Ishrat and Javed Sheikh in their custody on June 12 from Vasad toll booth in Anand district with the help of N K Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede of IB. “From there, the duo were taken to Khodiyar farm house on S G Highway, owned by one K S Desai, and kept there under the close watch of Nizamuddin Saiyyed, commando to Tarun Barot and Vishwanathan, a police constable,” it says. On the part of Zeeshan Johar, the charge sheet claims that he was brought to Ahmedabad with the help of two alleged informers of Rajendra Kumar- Ovais and Asad- in April 2004 and kept in illegal confinement in apartment 164/165 of Gota Housing colony. With inputs from PTI