Court asks SIT to submit final report on Ishrat Jahan encounter by Nov 18

The Gujarat High Court Friday asked the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others, to submit its final report by November 18.

A division bench of justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari said that substantial progress has been made in the case, after SIT's new chairman RR Verma has taken over the investigations.

This is the second time that the court has directed the SIT to submit its final report. During the last hearing on September 10, the SIT was asked to give its final report by October 7. However, the team had submitted an interim report saying investigation into the case was not yet over.

During the proceedings on Friday, Verma said that they wanted to conduct psycho-analysis test on some of the witnesses, who have turned hostile and the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) has given them time to conduct such a test between October 19 and 21.

Verma also told the court that they have some queries regarding the CFSL report on reconstruction of the encounter.

The next hearing of the case will be held on November 21.

Ishrat (19), Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were allegedly killed in a police encounter here on June 15, 2004.

Advocate Mukul Sinha, representing Gopinath Pillai, father of deceased Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Shaikh, informed to the court that the SIT was taking a very long time to give a final report on the issue.