CBI: It's fake

Probe agency files its 1st chargesheet

• Neither Modi nor his trusted aide Amit Shah named
• CBI suspects involvement of IB officer Rajendra Kumar

Ahmedabad (Agencies): Almost nine years after Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in Ahmedabad on suspicion of being a part of a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) module out to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday filed its first chargesheet in the case in an Ahmedabad court to explain what really transpired on June 15, 2004. The 19-year-old teen from Mumbai was killed in a joint operation conducted by the Gujarat unit of the Intelligence Bureau and the state police, according to the CBI. Neither Modi nor his trusted aide Amit Shah has been named in the chargesheet. While stating that Ishrat, who lived in Thane, Mumbai, was not a terrorist as alleged by Gujarat Police, the chargesheet named seven policemen, including DIG DG Vanzara who is in jail, then Ahmedabad crime branch chief DGP PP Pande, who is absconding, A Choudhary, Tarun Barot, JR Parmar and NK Amin with murder, conspiracy and destruction of evidence, abduction and under sections of the Arms Act. The formal set of charges was filed by Assistant Commissioner of Police P Rathod in a Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) special court. Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Shaikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, who were killed in the fake encounter in addition to Ishrat, were alleged to have planned terror attacks in Ahmedabad. The CBI said Pillai was allegedly using Ishrat, a collegian in Mumbai, hailing from Mumbra town of Thane, as a shield to cover his activities. The CBI alleged that the Ahmedabad crime branch police had written the FIR even before the "fake encounter" took place. According to the chargesheet, the CBI suspects the involvement of senior intelligence officer Rajendra Kumar and his role and that of others in the State Intelligence Bureau need to be investigated further. The CBI is expected to name him as an accused in its next chargesheet, to be filed most likely after he retires at the end of this month. Kumar has said that though he shared information with the police about the possibility of Ishrat and the others being terrorists, he did not sanction the encounter. The CBI, however, says it has testimony from eyewitnesses and other evidence that will later show how Kumar had played a key role in the killings. The chargesheet has rebutted the Gujarat Police claim that Ishrat and others were driving towards Ahmedabad when they were intercepted on June 15, 2004. In fact, they were abducted, interrogated by IB officials, including Rajendra Kumar, and later a policeman drove a car with three of them to the encounter site, it said. The chargesheet said that one of the men killed in the 'encounter', Zeeshan Ali, was abducted by the police in April that year, another, Amjad Ali, in May and that Ishrat and a third man Javed were abducted in June and they were held at different farmhouses. Further, it pointed out that the weapons found with Ishrat and the others were supplied by the state Intelligence Bureau. The CBI, which took over the case in 2011, was told by Gujarat HC?to establish if it was a fake encounter and also if Ishrat and others were terrorists or not.