Agency yet to get hold of evidence to nail intel officer.
Rajendra Kumar — the intelligence officer responsible for having routed the information about almost all the encounters that took place in Gujarat between 2001 and 2005 — has again come under the CBI scanner for his proximity to senior BJP leaders. Kumar, who was posted as deputy director, Intelligence Bureau (IB) in Gujarat earlier and one of the senior-most officers in the IB at present, was questioned by the senior-most officers of the CBI on Friday.
Sources said the CBI is aware of the misleading and fabricated intelligence inputs generated by Kumar during his posting in Gujarat. But, so far, the investigating agency is struggling to get evidence to substantiate its charges.
Sources said information, before every encounter, was routed through a similar modus operandi wherein it was alleged that terrorists were on the prowl in Gujarat to kill chief minister Narendra Modi, BJP patriarch L K Advani and Vishwa Hindu Parishad international president Pravin Togadia.
Incidentally, the fake encounter cases of Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Sadik Jamal and Sameer Khan all took place during Kumar’s posting in Gujarat. Sources familiar with the development said Kumar was grilled on Friday primarily to know the line of information — the place from where the information was generated and the manner in which it was communicated to the Gujarat police.
Kumar is also key accused in the Sadik Jamal encounter case, an FIR of which had been filed at the Detection of Crime Branch by deputy superintendent of police M A Chavda on the orders of Gujarat HC.
Anupamsingh Gehlot, a Gujarat cadre IPS officer and the Bhavnagar district superintendent of police in 2004, had earlier mentioned in his statement to CBI that Kumar had informed him about Sadik Jamal.
In his statement, Gehlot had said that according to Kumar, Jamal was a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist who had come to Gujarat to kill Modi and Togadia. Gehlot also stated that he was intimated by Kumar twice directly and again through the director-general of police about Sadik Jamal. Gehlot is currently the DIG, state IB.
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