Verma, who is also the joint commissioner of police (traffic), told the HC at the very beginning that the encounter was not genuine and that a fresh FIR should be filed against the guilty policemen.
His face does not betray his emotions. He does not speak a word before the media. He just does his work silently and with such thoroughness that, in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, more than 20 policemen are in a state of panic because of his work.
The man we are talking about is IPS officer Satish Verma, a member of the special investigation team (SIT) constituted by the Gujarat high court to investigate the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.
It was Verma who told the high court at the very beginning of the probe that the encounter was not genuine and that a fresh FIR should be filed against the guilty policemen. He finally found out the truth despite the hurdles put in his way initially by some of his own colleagues in the SIT.
Even among the police fraternity, Satish Verma, who is also joint commissioner of police (traffic), is considered a very tough officer.
He was the choice of the lawyers representing the victims, Ishrat and Javed, for member of SIT. The two other members - IPS officers RR Verma and Mohan Jha - were appointed by the Gujarat high court on the recommendation of the central and state governments, respectively.
Verma, who was earlier instrumental in checking the mafia rule in Porbandar of the late godmother, Santokben Jadeja, smelt a rat in the police account of the Ishrat encounter. He bluntly told the high court that he doubted the genuineness of the encounter. This led to his confrontation with his own colleagues in the probe team- former SIT chairman Karnal Singh and Gujarat-cadre IPS officer, Mohan Jha.
Sources said that though the high court had appointed a three-member SIT, it was Verma who actually dug up the truth single-handedly using his own network. A couple of witnesses belonging to the lower ranks of the police spilled the beans before Verma and confirmed that the Ishrat encounter was not genuine.
However, the two other members of the SIT were not in agreement with him. They wanted more investigation and even accused Verma of non-cooperation. Their differences came out in the open before the high court but Verma stuck to his stand. Not only that, he filed an affidavit before the court saying that the encounter was not genuine and that a fresh FIR should be filed against the involved policemen.
Sources said that Verma's tough stand put Karnal Singh, a joint commissioner of Delhi police, in an embarrassing position and he quit after he was transferred to Mizoram. Verma faced more hurdles when, in a midnight raid, he seized some vital forensic evidence related to the case from the state-run Forensic Science Laboratory. This led to one of the FSL officials lodging a complaint against him.
The tough police officer did not bow even when a couple of witnesses accused him of harassment. Sources in the SIT said that Satish Verma proved very helpful to chairman RR Verma in finding out the truth about the encounter.
It was Satish Verma's expertise in scientific and medical evidence which helped his team build up the sequence of events that had led to the encounter in which Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed by some trigger-happy policemen of the crime branch.
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