The Gujarat High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team on Saturday reconstructed the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter for a better understanding of the case.
Third reconstruction
It was the third reconstruction of the encounter on June 15, 2004, in which the Mumbai-based college girl Ishrat Jahan along with Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh and two alleged Pakistani terrorists were killed by the police near Kotarpur on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The police had claimed that Ishrat and others were Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives who had come to Gujarat to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others.
Besides SIT chief Rajiv Ranjan Verma and other members, officials of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, and the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory were present during the reconstruction of the event. The car with Maharashtra number plate, which was claimed to had been used by Ishrat and her associates to come to Ahmedabad, and the police Gypsy were also brought to the scene.
Psychological profiling
Meanwhile, the SIT is believed to have started the psychological profiling of 10 key witnesses in the case, particularly those who retracted their statements. The profiling has started as per the directive of the High Court, which is monitoring the investigation.
The SIT has recorded the statements of some 240 witnesses in the case, including of police officers who were part of the encounter team then.
It has also recorded the statement of crime branch police constable Moti Desai, who allegedly told the SIT member Satish Verma that the Ishrat encounter was fake, but later retracted his statement.
