Family of another victim of Guj police encounter to move court

MUMBAI: More trouble appears to brew for Gujarat police following the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife as a woman here plans to move Bombay High Court for reopening a probe into the killing of her 19-year-old daughter Ishrat Jahan Raza in an 'encounter' by the state police for her alleged terrorist activities.

"No one listened to us when we had said it in 2004. But now that the truth has been exposed with the fake encounter case (of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi), we hope that proper investigations will be conducted in the matter and justice will be delivered," Shamima Raza, Ishrat's mother, said.

The family is seeking CBI investigation into the case in the light of the arrest of former Gujarat police DIG D G Vanzara in Soharabuddin Sheikh case.

Vanzara was a senior officer in the Crime Branch of the Gujarat police when Ishrat, an undergraduate science student in a Mumbai college, along with three others, was killed in an encounter in Gujarat in June 15, 2004.

Shamima said she would be soon filing a petition before the Bombay High Court seeking CBI investigation in the case.

The Gujarat police had alleged at the time that Ishrat and her companions were members of militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and were planning to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, an allegation refuted by her family members.

"We had said that there was some foul play involved but the matter was not taken up properly by our state government which should have done more," Shamima said.