Why didn’t we shoot Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru, asks former CBI chief Ranjit Sinha

NEW DELHI: Former CBI director Ranjit Sinha, who headed the investigation into the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, said the mandate of the agency was to probe whether it was fake or genuine, and not her links with terrorists. “Why didn’t we shoot Mumbai 26/11 attacker Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru, despite knowing that they were militants,” he asked.

The CBI filed a chargesheet on the encounter case, terming it “fake” and naming officers of the IB and Gujarat police. The encounter took place in June 2004 on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

“CBI was never investigating whether Ishrat had LeT links or not. The case came to CBI after it was established during the magisterial probe and several other inquiries that the killing was staged and the law says fake encounters are illegal,” said Sinha, who had ruled in favour of naming then IB special director Rajinder Kumar in the case.

CBI officers who supervised the probe said Pillai had been fielded to give an edge to the BJP. Ex-CBI special director K Saleem Ali, who was supervising the probe, did not find merits in the statement given by David Headley, who claimed before a Mumbai court that he was told by LeT leader Zaki-ur-Rehman that Ishrat was a fidayeen.

Ali, according to CBI officials, had argued that since Headley is an accused, his statement won’t be admissible before the court and, moreover, it was just “hearsay”.