Ishrat Jahan Encounter Case: First chargesheet only to name policemen involved but second chargesheet may be explosive

NEW DELHI: CBI will only charge nine Gujarat policemen directly involved in the controversial IshratJahan ‘encounter’ case as accused in its first set of charges it will file before the court this week, with a far more explosive second chargesheet, expected later this month, likely to include more names, possibly even a political figure.

Intelligence Bureau Special Director Rajendra Kumar will not be named as an accused in the first chargesheet, said CBI Director Ranjit Sinha. He, however, refused to give Kumar a clean chit. “Right now, we are chargesheeting those Gujarat cops who are part of the actual encounter. We will ask the court for few more weeks to join the dots and get firm evidence against those who had a role in the larger conspiracy. We expect to file a second charge-sheet by July 24,” Sinha told ET.

Sinha said the “entire sequence of events” leading to the encounter will be mentioned in the first chargesheet and the blanks filled in the second chargesheet. “We have to proceed on a firm footing,” he said. Kumar’s role in the forwarding the intelligence alert on the four persons killed in the encounter is likely to be mentioned in the first chargesheet. “Kumar is expected to be made accused in the second chargesheet,” the source said. The home ministry could join the case in court as a party on Kumar’s side if he is included in the chargesheet without seeking MHA’s sanction and if Kumar challenges it. The first chargesheet, the CBI source said, is not likely to mention Gujarat CM Narendra Modi or former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah, both of whom are blamed by their rivals for the June 2004 encounter in which four people, including Mumbai college student Jahan, were killed.

The Gujarat police has said all four killed, which they say included two Pakistanis, were part of a LeT module and were in the state to kill Modi. “There is no prosecutable evidence against Modi or Shah yet. Wait till the second chargesheet,” the source said. CBI has, meanwhile, written to Gujarat DGP asking the state police to make efforts to arrest absconding senior official PP Pandey, who will be named as an accused in the first chargesheet. CBI has in the past called him the “mastermind” of what it says is a fake encounter killing. CBI has also written to the home ministry asking for adequate security for its team investigating this case. The investigating officer in the case, SP S M Tamgadge, has received death threats.