Chidambaram says affidavit is not evidence

NEW DELHI: The politics over the Centre���s affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case ��� which surfaced just ahead of the Thursday by-poll in Gujarat ��� continued on Friday with Union home minister P Chidambaram insisting that the Centre���s intelligence inputs on Ishrat and her accomplices passed on to Gujarat in 2004 were not ���conclusive evidence��� and only meant to give investigators leads for further inquiry.

���Certainly no one suggested that based on an intelligence input you should kill someone. If a state government acts as though intelligence inputs are evidence or conclusive proof I am sorry for that government,��� Mr Chidambaram told newspersons in the US while defending the Centre���s affidavit which clearly says that only intelligence inputs had been shared with the Gujarat government.

���I think too much is being attributed to that affidavit as if it is meant to defend the government of Gujarat against the excesses that may have been committed by its police. I am sorry for the government of Gujarat and the manner in which it runs its police administration,��� the home minister added.

Incidentally, the Centre���s affidavit filed in the Gujarat high court confirmed that Ishrat Jahan, her partner Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai and two others killed in an encounter in 2004 had links with the LeT. But what the MHA has now clarified that all that it did was pass on the information regarding Ishrat���s association with LeT. As regards the subsequent action taken by the Gujarat police on the inputs, which were obviously not conclusive proof, the Union home secretary clarified that the Centre could in no way be held accountable for the same.

���Even terrorists cannot be killed in cold blood,��� he had said on Wednesday.

The Centre���s affidavit however upset the law ministry, especially the part where the MHA has insisted that a CBI inquiry into the Ishrat Jahan encounter was not required. Though it is now contemplating a revised affidavit, any decision on whether or not a clarification must be filed in the court will entirely be a political one.

Incidentally, it is not only Congress that seemed to have attempted to make the district magistrate���s report stating that the Ishrat Jahan encounter was ���staged by the police officers to please the Modi government��� into a political issue ahead of Thursday���s by-poll. Even ban on Jaswant Singh���s book was said to have been motivated by by-poll. The fact that Mr Modi has decided against renewing the ban, now that the by-poll is over, only proves this point.