Truth out despite govt's bid to derail Ishrat probe

Though it got many opportunities to find the truth, the state police failed to find out whether the encounter in which Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed was fake or not. It needed an SIT appointed by the Gujarat high court to uncover the truth about the criminal role of the Ahmedabad crime branch.

In fact, the state police tried every possible means to cover up the truth. The cover-up started right from the time when the first FIR was lodged by the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) against Ishrat and three others after the encounter on June 15, 2004.

The investigation of the case was closed by the DCB after it concluded that no other accused could be traced after the encounter in which the four people were killed.

During that period, investigating officers continued to change periodically and none of them apparently tried to find out whether the encounter was genuine or not.

The DCB had claimed at the time that Ishrat Jahan, her friend Javed Sheikh and two Pakistani nationals were on a mission to eliminate chief minister Narendra Modi. They had entered Gujarat in a blue Tata Indica car and were intercepted by the police near Kotarpur Water Works where they were killed in an exchange of gunfire, the DCB had said.

Another opportunity to uncover the truth came when sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Gaurav Prajapati started the mandatory enquiry in the case as the four people had been killed in an encounter.

The SDM conducted the enquiry for a couple of years but stopped after he was transferred. The state police got another opportunity in 2009 when Justice KS Jhaveri of the Gujarat high court constituted a special investigation team (SIT) under the chairmanship of senior IPS officer Pramod Kumar and two other IPS officers, Mohan Jha and JK Bhatt. However, the SIT was unable to find out the truth.

After this, the Supreme Court handed over the case to the Gujarat high court and asked a two-judge bench to look into the mater afresh. The bench then dissolved the first SIT and constituted another one to investigate the case.

Interestingly, all of a sudden the state government showed great interest in finding out the truth about the controversial encounter. It requested the high court to hand over the inquiry to the Special Task Force (STF) headed by retired Supreme Court judge, Justice MB Shah.

The government made the proposal even after the SIT under the chairmanship of Karnal Singh of Delhi police had already been constituted. However, the high court did not entertain the government's proposal after Mukul Sinha and IH Saiyad, counsels for Gopinath Pillai and Shamima Kausar, respectively, raised strong objections.

Even on Monday, when the high court-appointed SIT stated in its report that the encounter was not genuine, the counsels of the state government submitted that the state police should be given the task to investigate the case further.

During the hearing of the case earlier this year, the state government had to face the high court's wrath over the transfer of top police officers including GL Singhal, PP Pandey and Tarun Barot. These police officers were suspected of influencing the witnesses of the case. When the state government delayed in transferring these policemen, the high court initiated contempt proceedings against it.

Satish Verma, joint commissioner of police (traffic) and member of the SIT, also had to face harassment when he seized some vital documents related to the case from the Forensic Science Laboratory. After that, a petition was filed against Verma by an official of the FSL.

Incidentally, it was Verma who had concluded in the first first phase of the inquiry itself that the encounter did not appear to be genuine.