Sadiq jamal fake encounter case: Ex-IB officer, Sudhir Kumar, slams CBI move to question him

NEW DELHI: A former special director of the Intelligence Bureau, IPS officer Sudhir Kumar, has alleged that the Central Bureau of Investigation has vested interests in targeting top IB officials, slamming the agency as it plans to question him in the Sadiq Jamal fake encounter case of 2003.

CBI is reportedly planning to question the 1968-batch officer, who, as special director of IB posted in Mumbai in 2003, was the superior officer of the bureau’s joint director Rajendra Kumar posted in Gujarat.

“If an organisation is allowed to get away by embarrassing and humiliating senior officials of the IB, the morale of IB’s junior officials will fall,” Kumar told ET. “There is a hazard of undermining the morale of the entire IB. Why will IB’s officers then go out to alert the states about terrorists? I cannot understand the CBI’s agenda.”

Kumar said CBI had sent him a “cryptic message” eight months ago about its intention to speak to him in the Sadiq Jamal case. “I never heard from them later. Now CBI is planting stories in media about my questioning,” alleged Kumar, who retired in 2005 as secretary (security) in Cabinet Secretariat and was then Vigilance Commissioner in CVC till 2009.

A CBI spokesperson, when asked about the agency’s purported move to question Kumar, however, offered no comment. CBI suspects that Rajendra Kumar and Sudhir Kumar were both aware of the ‘fake’ input generated regarding Jamal by the IB.

“This is ridiculous and inconsequential to my mind…IB is a 125-year-old organisation. Does the CBI want to sit on a judgment on the set methodology of IB in getting information and how they share it with other agencies who take action?” Kumar asked. He added, “I spent 25 years in the IB and I am not answerable about this methodology to anyone. The CBI is supposed to investigate if the encounter was genuine or not but it wants to include in its probe the input sharing mechanism of the IB.”

Sudhir Kumar, who joined IB in 1980 from his parent cadre of Maharashtra, also wondered if the probe agency was treating him as a witness or a suspect in the case. “Is CBI asking me for leads or are they treating me as an accused? I don’t know. What is the agency’s intention behind leaking such matters?” he asked.