Ishrat was murdered in fake encounter, confirms SIT

AHMEDABAD: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has confirmed that Ishrat Jahan’s killing was a murder and the encounter fake. Following SIT’s report, which was submitted to the Gujarat high court on Monday, the court ordered registration of a case of murder against the cops accused of murder. The development is a major setback to the Narendra Modi government.

SIT said that Ishrat along with Javed Sheikh, alias, Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed prior to the ‘encounter’ on June 15, 2004. However, the court decided against divulging precise details of the SIT report as it would prejudice investigations in the case. Those accused in the case include then JCP (crime branch) PP Pande, suspended DIG DG Vanzara, then ACP GL Singhal and ACP NK Amin – all IPS officers.

Twenty-one policemen, including IPS officers, were involved in the encounter. Vanzara and Amin are in jail and are also accused in the Soharabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and for the murder of Sheikh's wife Kausar Bi.

The court will decide on who will file the FIR and investigate the Ishrat Jahan case. A division bench of justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari had on October 7 asked SIT to submit its final report on whether the encounter of the four persons, claimed by Gujarat Police to be terrorists, was genuine.

The Ahmedabad Crime Branch had claimed that Ishrat, a 19-yearold college girl, along with Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed on June 15, 2004. The four were alleged to be members of terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba on a mission to kill chief minister Modi.

The probe in the case was supervised directly by the high court, which constituted SIT in 2010, to investigate the genuineness of the encounter after petitions were filed by Ishrat's mother Shamima Kausar and Gopinath Pillai raising questions about the police version of the incident.