Political pressure on the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, mounted on Tuesday, a day after a magistrate ruled that college girl, Ishrat Jahan, and three others were gunned down in a "fake encounter" in June 2004 and dubbed as "terrorists" who had plotted to "kill" the Chief Minister.
While senior Congress leader and Union Law Minister, M. Veerappa Moily, said "more skeletons may tumble," if "more investigations" were held, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), called for Mr. Modi's resignation. The Gujarat government, for its part, has rejected the report.
Mr. Moily said the Gujarat Chief Minister would have been in “some other place” if the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter had taken place in a foreign country. He told reporters that Mr. Modi could be headed for bigger trouble as “there are many such cases which are coming up now. If more investigations are conducted, more skeletons may tumble“.
Noting that the law will take its own course, he said the revelations in the Ishrat Jahan encounter was a “very serious matter for the country and....any other foreign country, Narendra Modi would have been in some other place“.
Terming the incident as “most unfortunate”, Mr. Moily said “many things are done brutally and inhuman things are being done“.
His comments came a day after a judicial probe said the encounter in which college girl Ishrat Jahan and three others were gunned down in 2004 was fake and executed in cold blood by police officers for selfish motives after the four were suspected to be on a mission to “kill” Modi.
CPI(M) demands resignation
The CPI(M) on Tuesday demanded the resignation of Mr. Narendra Modi, taking moral responsibility for the killing.
"The targeted killings of persons belonging to the minority community by the State police reveals the state of affairs under the Narendra Modi government,” the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said in a statement.
The encounter in which college girl, Ishrat Jahan, and three others were gunned down in 2004 was fake and executed in cold blood by police officers after the four were suspected to be on a mission to “kill” Chief Minister Modi, the judicial probe had found.
"The enquiry has revealed the hand of senior police officials including the then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner and DIG Vanzara who is now facing trial for another fake encounter killing — of Soharabuddin Sheikh and his wife,” the statement said.
The Polit Bureau demanded immediate action to arrest and prosecute all the police personnel involved in these murders.
“Exemplary punishment has to be meted out in this case as the crime has been committed by those entrusted with upholding the law. Given the spate of illegal encounter killings which took place under the encouragement of the State government, Mr. Modi should take moral responsibility and quit office,” the statement added.
Gujarat government rejects report
The Gujarat government has rejected the S. P. Tamang report which said that Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed by police in a fake encounter in 2004, terming them as terrorists. The State government's spokesman, Jay Narayan Vyas, said Magistrate Tamang prepared the report in a “hurry”, without giving the Gujarat government a chance to express its views.
