Weapons were given to Gujarat police by SIB: CBI chargesheet

AHMEDABAD: The weapons used in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case were provided to the Gujarat police by the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB), the first chargesheet filed on Wednesday by CBI in a special court here said.

"Girish Singhal, who was the first IPS officer to be arrested in the case, went to the SIB on instructions from D G Vanzara and collected the weapons," the chargesheet, filed yesterday in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate H S Khutwad, said.

The chargesheet further stated that Singhal later handed over the weapons to Nizamuddin Saiyed who, in turn, handed them over to Tarun Barot. Saiyed was Barot's commando.

"Police commando Mohan Kalasawa was made to fire several rounds from an AK 56 rifle (planted on Amjadali Rana), on the official Gypsy vehicle of N K Amin. This AK56 rifle was brought to the scene by Tarun Barot. After firing from this weapon, it was placed near the dead body of Amjadali," it further said.

Kalaswa was a police commando in the crime branch at that time and died in 2007. He has not been chargesheeted by CBI.

CBI's investigation has shown a total of 70 rounds were fired by five Gujarat cops from two .38 revolvers, a 9 mm pistol, three service rivolvers, one stengun and one AK-47 to kill Ishrat, besides three others who were in their prior custody.

"N K Amin fired five rounds from his 9mm pistol, J G Parmar fired 4 rounds from his rivolver, Tarun Barot fired 5 rounds from his service revolver and 3 rounds from the revolver of I K Chauhan, Mohan Kalaswa fired 32 rounds from his AK-47 and 10 rounds from AK-47 of commando Mohan Nanji and Anaju Chaudhary fired 10 rounds from his stengun to kill all four," the chargesheet stated.

In the encounter that had taken on June 15, 2004 on a desolate stretch between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, Mumbra college student Ishrat Jahan (19), Javed Shaikh, alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbar Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed by the Gujarat police on the grounds that the four were on a "mission to eliminate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi".

CBI, which was handed over the investigation into the case by the Gujarat High Court on a plea by Ishrat's mother Shamima Kausar, has stated in its chargesheet that the encounter was fake.