Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case: IB's Rajinder Kumar headed for a lonely legal battle

NEW DELHI: Hanging his boots on Wednesday after a 34-year-long career, IB special director Rajinder Kumar, who handled the sensitive Pakistan desk, could have gone home with his formidable reputation of being a no-nonsense officer who could read a terrorist’s mind.

However, things changed since May when CBI first summoned Kumar in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. In the words of a senior CBI officer, the 15-month-long probe till then had got no attention till “all hell broke loose the moment we asked for Kumar”. IB Chief Asif Ibrahim knocked on every door that mattered in the North Block and South Block, saying his top snoop had “no meeting of mind” with the accused Gujarat Police officers and termed CBI’s actions as utter demoralisation for IB. But Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde “told the IB chief that a 100-year-old premier agency like IB cannot be affected or demoralised by the wrong actions of a few officers”. “Message was clear — the government can’t side with an officer facing a CBI probe,” an official close to Shinde told ET. A day before Kumar’s retirement, the last citadel fell — the ministry shared Ishrat files with CBI.

Kumar, the 1979-batch IPS officer of the Manipur-Tripura cadre, seems headed for a lonely legal battle. Ironically, Kumar’s senior officer by one batch from the same cadre, CBI special director Saleem Ali, is supervising this probe. “Kumar, in IB parlance, is a hardcore officer, much in the mould of the Punjab DGP SS Saini. His stint in Gujarat as IB joint director from 2001-2005 was a highlight of his career. His interception of LeT’s module of Javed Sheikh, Jishan Johar and Amjad Ali in 2004 was a brilliant copy-book IB operation. Since 2005, he handled the sensitive Pak desk at IB headquarters. He had a role in the vital tip-off that led to the Batla encounter,” said an MHA officer who has worked with Kumar earlier in IB.

CBI claim there is “no personal animosity” of the agency with Kumar but ask should they ignore the “damning evidence” that is emerging against him.