Ishrat Jehan encounter: CBI to probe case

AHMEDABAD: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will investigate the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. The Gujarat high court handed over the probe to the agency on Thursday, stating it could not trust the state police to do a credible investigation. The court also said that it would not monitor the investigation any further, as had been requested by the state government.

The judges asked IPS officer Satish Verma to help in the investigation. During a hearing last month, the state government had agreed to a CBI probe, but had objected to Verma having any role in the investigation, saying the cop was involved in another suspicious encounter. The brother of a man who died in police custody in Porbandar in 1996 when Verma was the superintendent there, has approached the high court alleging the police took no action against the cop despite specific orders by the high court in 1998.

On Thursday, the state government again objected to Verma's name, but the court disregarded the objection.

Last month, the high court had ordered the registration of a fresh First Information Report (FIR) in the case after a special investigation team (SIT) of top IPS officers told the court that Ishrat and her three associates were killed in a fake encounter in 2004 The four were killed in cold blood, but the police had claimed they were terrorists and were on their way to assassinate chief minister Narendra Modi but were killed in a shootout.

As many as 21 policemen, including IPS officers are involved in the encounter. Among the IPS officers are the then Ahmedabad joint police commissioner (crime branch) P P Pande, the then assistant commissioners of police G L Singhal and N K Amin besides DG Vanzara, who is already in jail for his involvement in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.

Ishrat's mother had been demanding a CBI probe ever since the four were killed, but the Gujarat government resisted the move through out. Only last month did the advocate general said the government was ready for the CBI to probe, fearing the court to give it to the same SIT, which includes Verma. The cop has challenged his fellow SIT members whenever he felt the investigation was not going in the right direction.

Besides Ishrat, the cops had killed Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar in the fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.