After IB officer, Kaushik grilled in Ishrat Jahan case

Former police commissioner K R Kaushik was quizzed by the CBI in connection with the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case on Wednesday. This comes exactly a day after the questioning of senior Intelligence Bureau officer Rajendra Kumar by the agency.

Although questioned for a short while, Kaushik was told to appear before the agency again on Thursday. While he was the Ahmedabad commissioner of police in June 2004, Kumar was posted in Gujarat then. Even though the CBI had not got any call details between Kaushik and Vanzara from June 10, 2004, to June 15, 2004, the period when Ishrat Jahan was allegedly kidnapped and killed by Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) sleuths, the CBI grilled Kaushik regarding his communication with Kumar.

Kaushik was primarily questioned about the route of the IB input and how it was transferred to the then joint commissioner of police, DCB, P P Pandey, the untraceable senior IPS officer, who is also required in the Ishrat encounter case by the CBI.

CBI, in course of the investigation, found that Kaushik was privy to the intention of the accused officers to eliminate Ishrat and others in the staged encounter. Kaushik, however, was practically not present during the encounter.