IPS officer GL Singhal's Ishrat Jahan tapes also explosive

NEW DELHI: IPS officer GL Singhal’s recorded tapes — handed over to CBI in June and with the Supreme Court — on the snooping case involving BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi may be making waves, but fresh revelations from his disclosures to CBI in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter could be even more sensational.

IAS officer Pradeep Sharma’s affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on Saturday, besides attaching transcripts of 267 snooping tapes, has placed on record three sets of statements by Singhal to CBI earlier this year. They contain damning details of the fake encounter conspiracy that allegedly points a finger at Modi.

“I had been coerced to participate in and help in certain activities intended to obstruct the process of law.

Although illegal, unethical and improper, I had not declined to follow instructions because I was under a cloud in this (Ishrat) case and Amit Shah used to wield his authority by making it appear that I and my subordinate officers were being protected from incarceration by his and the CM’s (Modi) efforts,” says Singhal’s statement regarding the Ishrat case to the CBI on April 11 in Sabarmati jail, which is now part of Pradeep Sharma’s affidavit to the apex court.

Singhal told CBI he had “serious objections” to killing of Ishrat and also her abduction in the first place. “I had said, we let her go, and had promised to ensure that she would not spill the beans about this operation to anyone,” Singhal’s statement says. He claimed the ‘terrorists’ killed in the fake encounter did not have Modi as their target as he himself interrogated one of them, Amjad Ali, in illegal detention.

“Despite my strong objections, Vanzara insisted on keeping the motive involving the CM and on killing the girl and branding her later as a woman terrorist,” Singhal told CBI. He added Vanzara told him this was already discussed with “kali dadhi and safed dadhi” and that “they wanted it that way”. Singhal specified to CBI that “safed” and “kali” dadhis were the “code names” for Vanzara and in the Gujarat Crime Branch for Modi and Shah, respectively.

In July, 2012, Singhal’s 16-year-old son hanged himself to death while his family was grappling with the heat on him in the case. “I have thought about the predicament that I am in and I wish to speak the truth for my inner comfort and peace,” Singhal told CBI on April 11, after he was arrested and jailed in the case on February 21.