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Ishrat Jahan case: Was Zeeshan Johar the 'operational difference' between Singhal, Vanzara?

Sources say that Singhal tried his best to prevent Johar from being killed in the encounter.

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Zeeshan Johar, the alleged terrorist, could actually be the ‘operational difference’ that erupted between accused police officers DG Vanzara and GL Singhal while planning the Ishrat Jahan encounter.

According to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) charge sheet in the fake encounter case, Johar was detained at the Gota Housing Society in the city. The agency had mentioned the phrase ‘operational difference between Vanzara and Singhal’ in its charge sheet in the case.

Sources familiar with the development said that till the last minute of the encounter, Singhal was trying to prevent Johar from being killed in the encounter.

However, sources further stated that Vanzara remained adamant and did not allow Johar’s exit.

Sources said Johar was a drug peddler commuting between Gujarat and Kashmir through Delhi. The investigation, so far, had found that Johar was actually an informer of Singhal, passing on the information from Kashmir and Delhi to Singhal.

Johar’s activities, however, made the police suspicious and they wanted to know about his other contacts. He was allotted a house at Gota housing with the intervention of Singhal and allowed to move freely in the city to keep tabs on him.

Singhal’s men, however, followed him around in the city and also kept the house under audio tap to hear his conversations.

According to the statement of police inspector CJ Goswami, currently posted at Special Operations Group, Navsari, to CBI, Johar (having the code name Jaanbaaz) was allowed to venture out of his house and he followed him to the Shah-e-alam Mosque (Dargah) either on May 19 or May 20, 2004.

Goswami also mentioned that the police were trying to spot the person whom Johar was meeting.

Since then, Johar was not allowed to leave Ahmedabad and eventually got killed. However, sources said Singhal tried his best to save him from being killed.

How Javed was called to A’bad again

Even though the charge sheet had not revealed the exact details of Javed Sheikh’s last visit to the city, sources said two Intelligence Bureau (IB) officers went to Nashik and called Ishrat Jahan from Mumbra by calling on the landline of her neighbour. She came to Nashik and was eventually detained by the IB officers before being forced to call Javed as he had not been replying to the calls of Rajinder Kumar.

Ishrat told Javed that she had been detained and he immediately came to Nashik from Ahmednagar. Both the IB officers forced them to come to Ahmedabad and followed them in a white car all along from Nashik to Vasad, where both — Ishrat and Javed — were picked up by the Gujarat Police and IB officers.

Satellite phone came from Dubai?

CBI is still in the dark regarding the ownership of the satellite phone that was found from Javed Sheikh after the encounter. Sources said it was Javed, who had brought the satellite phone from Dubai and given it to Amjad Ali Rana when the latter was trapped to be handed over to the Gujarat Police in May 2004.

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