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Ishrat Jahan encounter killing

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Ishrat Jahan encounter, 15 June 2004.

The Ishrat Jahan encounter took place on 15 June 2004, and involved encounter killings of four people with alleged links to terrorists on an empty road stretch between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar in Gujarat state, by officers of the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch. Those killed were Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year old girl from Mumbai, and three men: Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Gulam Sheikh), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar.

The encounter was carried out allegedly by a team led by DIG D.G. Vanjara, who was later jailed for his alleged involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter.[1] The police alleged that Ishrat and her associates were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives involved in a plot to assassinate the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. Later, an investigation was launched into the allegations that Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter. After a long investigation, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged.[2] The decision was challenged by the Gujarat State government, and taken to the High Court. On 3 July, 2013, the CBI has filed its first chargesheet in an Ahmadabad court saying that the shooting was a staged encounter carried out in cold blood. [3]

Ishrat's family as well as several politicians and activists maintain that she was innocent.[4] CBI declared the encounter as staged, but did not comment on whether Ishrat Jahan was an LeT associate or not.[5] In 2004, a Lahore-based publication affiliated with LeT claimed that Ishrat and her companions were operatives,[6] but in 2007, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of the LeT retracted the statement as a "journalistic mistake", offering apology to Ishrat's family.[7] In 2010, some media outlets reported that the convicted terrorist David Headley had implicated Ishrat in terrorist activities in a statement given to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).[8] However, the NIA called these reports as "baseless",[9] and the CBI suspects that this input was fabricated by the IPS officer Rajendra Kumar, who is a suspect in the fake encounter case.[10] After further investigation, in 2011, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) told the Gujarat High Court that the encounter was not genuine, and the victims were killed prior to the date of the staged encounter.[11][12] In June 2013, the Intelligence Bureau chief Asif Ibrahim told the office of Prime Minister and Home Minister of India that the Bureau had enough evidence to prove that Ishrat was a part of an LeT module which planned to kill Narendra Modi and Lal Krishna Advani.[13]

Those killed

Ishrat Jahan Shamim Raza

Ishrat Jahan (1985 – 15 June 2004) was a second year Bachelor of Science student at Mumbai's Guru Nanak Khalsa College.[14] She was the second of 7 siblings. Her lower middle class family, hailing from Bihar, lived in the Rashid compound in the Muslim-dominated area of Mumbra in Thane district in Mumbai. Having lost her father Shamim two years before her own death, Ishrat taught tuition and did embroidery work to support her family. Ishrat's father Mohammad Shamim Raza was the proprietor of a Mumbai-based construction company called Asian Constructions while mother Shamima worked for a long time at a medicine packaging company in Vashi.[15]

Ishrat used to work as the secretary of Javed Sheikh (Pranesh), and used to handle his accounts.[16] Javed used to take her out of town at times on work.[17]

Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Gulam Sheikh)

Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Gulam Sheikh was the son of Gopinatha Pillai, a native of Noornad in Kerala. He was married to Sajida, and had three children, including a daughter.[18]

Pranesh had migrated to Mumbai in search of a job. Before his death, he had been booked for four assault cases in Mumbai and Pune, and had also been charged with involvement in a fake currency racket.[19] In the mid-1990s, he converted to Islam and changed his name to Javed Sheikh to marry a Muslim woman called Sajida. Gujarat Police recovered two passports from Javed: one obtained using his original name Pranesh and the second one in his new name.[19]

Ishrat's family first met Javed Sheikh just two months before her death.[15] He had taken Ishrat to Nasik, Bangalore and Lucknow, where he is believed to have met Amjad.[19]

Amjad Ali Rana

Amjad Ali Rana, also known as Akbar or Salim, was alleged to be an LeT terrorist from Haveli Diwan, Pakistan. He was reportedly found dead with an AK-56 rifle near his body. Amjad is believed to have met Javed several times in Oman, and also Javed and Ishrat in Ibrahimpur once.[19] Amjad introduced Ishrat and Javed to Zeeshan, the fourth victim.

Zeeshan Johar

Zeeshan (alias Jisan Johar alias Abdul Ghani Son of Kalu alias Janbaaz), along with Amjad, is said to have been caught in a trespassing case in Srinagar in 2003.[19] Nobody claimed the bodies of Amjad and Zeeshan after the encounter.[19] An identity card with a Pakistan address was reportedly recovered from Zeeshan's body. However, a later report by the metropolitan magistrate SP Tamang stated that identity cards were forged by the police and the two men were Indian citizens, although it did not give any evidence on this.[20]

The encounter

Ishrat had left her house on 11 June 2004, four days before she was killed. According to Ishrat's brother, their mother Shameema did not like her going out of town with Javed. Therefore, she did not inform her when she left for Nashik.[17] Ishrat made a phone call to her mother on 11 June spoke with her mother. According to her mother, Ishrat called her from a public phone booth outside a Nashik bus stop, and told her that "Uncle Javed Sheikh hasn’t come yet." A few minutes later, Ishrat made a second call and told her mother in a terrified voice that Javed had come but with some "strange men", and then hung abruptly.[15] She reportedly made another phone call on 12 June, informing her family that she had met Javed.

On 15 June 2004, the Gujarat police stated that Ishrat, along with three other people, had been gunned down near Ahmedabad by a police team belonging to the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of the Ahmedabad City Police.[21][22] The four were allegedly killed after the police chased their blue Tata Indica car. It is not clear how the four ended up in Gujarat from Maharashtra.[23]

The police claimed that all four were connected with the Pakistan-based terror group LeT and were in Gujarat to assassinate Narendra Modi, in order to avenge the communal riots of 2002 which had led to the deaths of numerous Muslims.[22] The police team was led by then Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay G. Vanzara, who was later jailed for involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter killing.[24][25]

Allegations

A probe into the encounter was ordered after Ishrat's family insisted that she was innocent, and the Mumbai police said she had no criminal background, and their investigation did not find anything that could implicate her.[21] A number of politicians and the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission demanded an inquiry.[24] Ishrat's funeral procession was attended by over 10,000 people in Mumbra, and the Samajwadi Party state president Abu Azmi said that he would demand a CBI probe into the killings.[26]

In 2004, a news report published in Lahore-based Ghazwa Times (considered to be a mouthpiece of the LeT) claimed that Ishrat was its operative, and was with her "husband" at the time of her death.[6] Ghazwa claimed on its website that "veil of Ishrat Jahan, a woman LeT operative, was removed by Gujarat police and her body kept with other mujahideens".[27]

The Gujarat government had faced strong criticism by human rights groups for anti-Muslim human rights violations, following the communal riots of 2002.[21] During this period, there had been several police encounter deaths in the Gujarat, three of which have been attributed to attempts to kill Narendra Modi in retaliation for the alleged involvement of the state machinery in the riots. Some human rights activists have alleged that many of these alleged encounters actually happen in police custody.[28].In 2007, several of the policemen held responsible for the death of Ishrat faced trial in connection with the 2005 fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife. The police officer D.G. Vanzara, who led the encounter was later jailed for his involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter. This resulted in an investigation into the encounter involving Ishrat.

S P Tamang report

The report by the Metropolitan Magistrate S P Tamang submitted in the metropolitan court Ahmedabad on 7 September 2009 said the four persons were killed in police custody.[21][29] It implicated a number of top police officials for the deaths, which were allegedly staged in order to win promotions and rewards.[21]

The Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the killing of Ishrat Jehan was a fake encounter,[2] and Ishrat's family stated that she was not connected with LeT at all. A petition led the high court to constitute a police team, headed by Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Pramod Kumar to look into the incident.[30]

In the 243-page report, Tamang named the "encounter specialist" of the Gujarat police, the then head of the DCB, D.G. Vanzara, among others, as the accused in the "cold-blooded murder" of Ishrat and three others.[22][25]

Tamang's report said the Crime Branch police kidnapped Ishrat and the others from Mumbai on 12 June 2004 and brought them to Ahmedabad. The four were killed on the night of 14 June in police custody, but the police claimed that an "encounter" took place the next morning on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Rigor mortis had set in between 11 pm and midnight the previous night, indicating that the police had later shot bullets into Ishrat's body to substantiate the encounter theory.[22]

Tamang said there was no evidence to link the victims with the LeT. There was also nothing to indicate that they had come to Gujarat to kill Modi.[22] The report said explosives, rifles and other weapons allegedly found in the car, and the weapons found on their person were all planted by the police.[22]

Claiming that the police officers were motivated by their personal interests in getting promotions and appreciation from the Chief Minister, Tamang included a list of top police officers, whom he held responsible. It includes Vanzara and his then deputy Narendra K. Amin, both of whom were already arrested in the Sohrabuddin encounter killing case. The list also included K.R. Kaushik, who was then the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner, P.P. Pandey, who was then the chief of the Crime Branch, and another alleged encounter specialist Tarun Barot.[22]

The Gujarat High Court stayed the Tamang report on 9 September 2009 but said that Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Court could use the report.

Further investigation

The Gujarat State Government challenged the report of the metropolitan magistrate, saying that the policemen accused of fake encounter were not given an opportunity to present their side of the arguments. The case was thus taken to the Gujarat High Court. The Gujarat high court stated that Ishrat Jahan encounter case was of national importance, and ordered the police witnesses to be placed where they would not be working as subordinates to officials accused in the case.

In July 2010, some media outlets reported that the LeT terrorist David Headley involved in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks had named Ishrat as a member of LeT.[31] However, in a letter to the Gujarat High Court, the NIA clarified that these media reports were false and David Headly did not speak about Ishrat Jahan.[9] IB has alleged that the original NIA report did have excerpts detailing Headley's account about Ishrat's links with LeT: these two paragraphs were later deleted.http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-06/india/40406831_1_ishrat-jahan-nia-muzammil[32]

A Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by Karnail Singh, was set up to probe the case further. The SIT sent four teams to Srinagar, Delhi, Lucknow and Nashik to probe Ishrat's alleged terrorist links.[33] The team's forensic and ballistic experts, reconstructed the events of the encounter.[34] Sri Karnail Singh appointed a team headed by Professor T D Dogra and Dr. Rajinder Singh, Director CFSL Delhi to help reconstruction of scene of occurrence.[35]

On 21 November 2011, the SIT told the Gujarat High Court that the Ishrat Jahan encounter was not genuine. After the SIT filed its report, the High Court ordered that a complaint under Indian Penal Code Section 302 (murder) has to be filed against those involved in the fake encounter, in which over 20 policemen, including senior IPS officers, were involved.[11][12] The CBI began investigations in the case with the help of Gujarat IPS officer Satish Verma. The CBI in their investigations for the first time tightened it's noose against a top cop in any encounter case, PP Pandey. PP Pandey had plotted Ishrat's encounter with the Central IB official Rajendra Kumar [36]

Congress leader and Himachal Pardesh CM Virbhadra Singh's daughter 'Abhilasha Kumari', is the Judge in Ishrat Jahan case.[37][38]

Arrests

After dithering for over an year,[39] on 21 February 2013 CBI arrested Gujarat IPS officer G L Singhal who was then Assistant Commissioner of Police Crime Branch at the time of the incident, in connection with the alleged fake encounter. The CBI in its FIR alleged that Singhal, now Superintendent of Police at State Crime Records Bureau played an active role in the encounter which was later found to be fake by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Gujarat High Court.[40][41] Besides Singhal, CBI had previously arrested senior police officers, Tarun Barot, J G Parmar, N K Amin, Bharat Patel and Anaju Chaudhary. Though when, even after the mandatory 90 days CBI didn't file their chargesheet in the case, all the accused were released on bail, except Amin.[42] A CBI court, issued an arrest warrant for another accused Additional DGP (Crime) P P Pandey, who is absconding, though he has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court to get the FIR cancelled.[43]

On June 4, suspended IPS officer D G Vanzara was arrested by the CBI, from Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad, after he was transferred a day ago from a Mumbai Jail since 2007, where he was lodged as he is an accused in Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter killing case of 2005 as well as Tulsi Prajapati encounter killing case. CBI alleged that he led the team of Detection of Crime Branch (DCB), Ahmedabad, on whose tip off the Ahmedabad Police went ahead with the encounter, and wanted to interrogate him further.[43] The following day, an Ahmedabad court remanded Vanzara to CBI custody till June 10.[44]

The CBI has also expressed desire to arrest Rajendra Kumar, but Intelligence Bureau chief Asif Ibrahim has opposed it on many occasions, drawing the ire of CBI.[45]

2013 developments

In June 2013, India Today reported that Asif Ibrahim, the chief of the Central Intelligence Bureau (CIB), had told the Prime Minister's Office and the Home Minister that the CIB had "enough evidence" to prove that Ishrat Jahan belonged to an LeT module which planned to kill Narendra Modi and Lal Krishna Advani. India Today reported Ibrahim as telling the Government that David Coleman Headley had revealed this in his interrogation by the FBI.[13]

Headlines Today report

On June 13th 2013 Headlines Today , an English news channel and subsidiary of India Today group, revealed that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani were among the leaders who were on the hit-list of the alleged terrorists killed in an encounter with Gujarat Police in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. It also claimed that Ishrat Jahan was among the terrorists assigned to execute the plot. It released unsubstantiated audio tapes of the conversation of allegedly a LET commander and Javed Sheikh,a man killed in the encounter. The news channel also produced the letter of IB chief to CBI director, in which he said that David Headley also revealed that Ishrat Jahan was an LeT operative. However, Headley's confession to the FBI had already been dismissed as hearsay by the NIA [46][47]

On June 14th , the leaked tapes were produced as evidence before the Gujarat High Court by the counsel for the Gujarat Government, Tushar Mehta. However, the bench refused to consider them as evidence, asking Mehta to take them to CBI for investigation.[48]

A group of social activists alleged that the IB was selectively leaking uncorroborated tapes to the media in order to scuttle the CBI probe just 24 hours ahead of the scheduled hearing of the case in the Gujarat High Court. They also criticized the media for airing the telephone calls without any forensic tests or voice tests.[49]

Tehelka report

In June 2013, the Tehelka magazine published an exposé[50] that revealed that the CBI has in its possession an audio recording of a conversation between Gujarat's former Minister of State Praful Patel, senior IAS officer G C Murmu, and other top officials in a meeting called to chalk out a plan to safeguard the interests of the officers whose names could crop up in the investigation. The conversation was secretly recorded by a meeting attendee, Girish Laxman Singhal, one of the two accused police officers who have been arrested by the CBI in the case. [51]

See Also

References

  1. ^ Roxy Gagdekar (7 July 2011). "Ishrat SIT grills jail cop DG Vanzara for four hours". DNA. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  2. ^ a b Ishrat Jahan killed in fake police encounter: Probe
  3. ^ "Ishrat Jahan's encounter was staged by police and state Intelligence Bureau, says CBI". NDTV. 03 July 2013. Retrieved 2013-07-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Ishrat was an innocent girl who was murdered, says family
  5. ^ CBI to steer clear of Ishrat's terror links
  6. ^ a b "Lashkar owns up Ishrat". The Times of India. 14 July 2004. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  7. ^ "Ishrat encounter: Centre's affidavit full of contradictions". The Times of India. 12 September 2009. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  8. ^ "Ishrat Jahan was an LeT fidayeen: Headley". The Times of India. 5 July 2010. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  9. ^ a b "NIA rubbishes reports that David Headley spoke about Ishrat Jahan". DNA. 12 May 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  10. ^ Aman Sharma (12 June 2013). "Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case: IB heartburn over CBI summons". Economic Times.
  11. ^ a b "Ishrat Jahan encounter was fake: SIT tells Gujarat HC". IBNLive. 21 November 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  12. ^ a b "Gujarat cops killed Ishrat Jahan in cold blood: SIT". Hindustan Times. 21 November 2011.
  13. ^ a b Mahurkar, Uday (June 14 2013). "IB chief does what the Congress didn't want, counters CBI on Ishrat case". India Today. Retrieved July 3 2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  14. ^ Ishrat Jahan a terrorist, says Gujarat govt Hindustan Times – 8 September 2009
  15. ^ a b c Ujjwala Nayudu (21 November 2011). "A bright teen who smiled all day, mischievous yet understanding". The Indian Express. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  16. ^ "Police exposed, hope to get justice now". The Indian Express. 23 November 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  17. ^ a b "Ishrat's last call to sister: Strange men trailing me". The Telegraph. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  18. ^ "Pranesh Pillai's father says his son got justice". Deccan Chronicle. 22 November 2011. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
  19. ^ a b c d e f Chandan Haygunde , Shaju Philip (22 November 2011). "Now, I can live without stigma". The Indian Express. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
  20. ^ "True identity of Johar, Rana still unknown". The Times of India. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
  21. ^ a b c d e VOA News
  22. ^ a b c d e f g Ishrat Jahan killing also a fake encounter: probe report
  23. ^ The Death Of A Family by Rana Ayyub. Tehelka, Issue 38 Volume 6.
  24. ^ a b Ishrat Jahan's killing staged: Judicial probe report
  25. ^ a b Ishrat Jahan encounter is fake,judicial probe
  26. ^ Thousands turn out to bid Ishrat farewell. The Times of India article dated 20 June 2004.
  27. ^ "Gujarat Govt to Challenge Ishrat Jahan Report". Outlook. SEP 08, 2009. Retrieved May 5, 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ Leena Misra. There's a hollow ring to encounter stories in Gujarat
  29. ^ Ishrat Jahan encounter is fake, says judicial probe
  30. ^ Gujarat maintains Ishrat Jahan a terrorist
  31. ^ Ishrat Jahan was an LeT suicide bomber: Headley to NIA NDTV – 5 July 2010
  32. ^ Ishrat Jahan encounter: Unanswered questions
  33. ^ Ujjwala Nayudu, Ishrat: 19 cops under SIT scanner, to be quizzed. The Indian Express, 2011-01-07.
  34. ^ Ujjwala Nayudu , Ishrat: Experts from Delhi to reconstruct encounter. The Indian Express, 2011-03-13.
  35. ^ "Board of experts misinterpreted parameters in Ishrat case: SIT". Jagron post. 19 December 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  36. ^ "Ujjwala Nayudu,Top cop Pandry, now on the run, plotted Ishrat Jahan encounter with IB man". Indian Express. 5 May 2013. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  37. ^ Virbhadra daughter is Additional HC judge
  38. ^ Hon'ble Ms. Justice Abhilasha Kumari
  39. ^ "Why is the Congress playing Safe on fake Encounters?". Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 45,. 10 November 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  40. ^ "Ishrat Jahan fake encounter: CBI arrests Gujarat police officer". The Times of India. 23 February 2013.
  41. ^ "CBI arrests first IPS officer in Ishrat fake encounter". Hindustan Times. 21 February 2013. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  42. ^ "IPS officer gets bail in encounter case". Deccan Herald. 27 May 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
  43. ^ a b "Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case: IPS officer DG Vanzara arrested by CBI from jail". DNA India. 4 June 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
  44. ^ "Ishrat Jahan fake encounter: IPS officer DG Vanzara remanded in CBI custody". DNA India. Jun 5, 2013,. Retrieved June 6, 2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  45. ^ "IB chief does what the Congress didn't want, counters CBI on Ishrat case". India Today. June 14, 2013. Retrieved June 16, 2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  46. ^ http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1542579/report-nia-rubbishes-reports-that-david-headley-spoke-about-ishrat-jahan
  47. ^ "Lashkar-e-Taiba plot to kill Narendra Modi unveiled-Headlines Today". June 13,2013. Retrieved June 14,2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  48. ^ Ishrat Jahan case: HC raps Gujarat govt, says nobody has licence to kill
  49. ^ Activists say IB trying to scuttle CBI probe in Ishrat case
  50. ^ "[Exposé] Ishrat Jahan encounter: CBI probe nails IB officer's role-Tehelka.com". Retrieved June 22,2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  51. ^ !accessdate=July 4,2013 "File Charge Sheet In Ishrat Jahan Case By July 4: Court To CBI". {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)
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