Sadik Jamal encounter case: CBI says it will file report soon

Ahmedabad: A special CBI court today did not pass any order on an application which sought further probe into the Sadik Jamal encounter case, after the investigative agency said that the points raised on the issue were already being probed. Sadik’s brother Shabir Jamal had filed an application, seeking directions to the central agency to further probe the involvement of the then Joint Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) Rajendra Kumar, former Gujarat Minister of State (MoS) for Home Amit Shah and Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2003 encounter case. CBI advocate I H Syed submitted before the court that all the relevant aspects in this case were being investigated and very soon they would file a supplementary charge sheet or a report. He requested the court not to pass any order in the case. [caption id=“attachment_925297” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] After his submission, special CBI judge VK Vyas refrained from passing any order on the application and kept further hearing on 6 August. The application remains pending with the court. Court also heard another application in which all the eight accused in the case, including suspended DySP Tarun Barot had sought Mumbai Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau’s (SIB) report which alleged that Sadik was a terrorist. CBI submitted before the court that the IB has requested to keep their 2003 report as a classified one and for that it cannot be shared with the accused. The court has given two weeks’ time to the IB to reconsider if it was ready to de-classify the document or not and kept further hearing on the application on 17 July. The court has also mentioned that if by the next hearing IB still remains undecided whether to de-classify the document or not, then it would pass an appropriate order. Sadik, a resident of Bhavnagar city was killed by a Crime Branch team in an encounter near Galaxy cinema on the outskirts of the city on 13 January, 2003. Gujarat police had claimed that he was a terrorist who had entered the city to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia. On a petition filed by Shabir, Gujarat High Court had in 2011 directed CBI to take over the probe after filing a new FIR in the case. CBI has filed charge sheet in this case against eight accused on 21 December, 2012. Apart from ex-Mumbai scribe Ketan Tirodkar, CBI has arrested eight Gujarat policemen, including Barot and JG Parmar in the case.   PTI