The Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Gujarat High Court to probe the Ishrat Jahan encounter case believes that she and Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh were possibly picked up by the State police at least three days before they were killed in an encounter on June 15, 2004.
The SIT also believes that the two Pakistani nationals, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar — who were also killed in the encounter — were in the custody of the State police for some time and were forcibly put in the same car with Ishrat and Javed to give the encounter a terrorist angle.
SIT sources said Ishrat and Javed were abducted and kept in a bungalow on the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar highway for at least three days, while the two Pakistanis were in the custody of the Crime Branch police and were kept separately at a farmhouse in Narol on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
The sources, however, did not reveal how and from where the State police picked up Ishrat, who lived in Mumbra near Mumbai, and Javed, who lived in Pune with his family. They also did not explain how the two came together and whether they were abducted separately and put together in the same car by the police.
The sources said the two Pakistani nationals killed along with Ishrat and Javed might have had some links with the terror network, as a result of which no questions had been raised over their encounter killing in the last six years.
Intelligence inputs
The SIT findings give credence to the allegations that the “intelligence inputs” of the duo having links with Pakistan-based terror networks were “manufactured” in Gujarat in collusion with Central intelligence bureau officials posted in the State.
It was believed that the “inputs” were suitably placed after Ishrat and Javed were abducted by the police and clubbed with the two Pakistani nationals to make the encounter look genuine.
The Union Home Ministry, in an affidavit before the Gujarat High Court, admitted that the inputs were given by the Central intelligence bureau, adding that it had definite information about Ishrat being closely linked to the Pakistani terror groups.
Later, however, the Centre submitted a revised affidavit questioning the justification of the encounter deaths, but did not wash its hands off the inputs.
Intelligence bureau sources here have refuted the allegations, denying reports that its officers were hand-in-glove with the State encounter specialists to justify the killings.
Chudasma in hospital
Meanwhile, Abhay Chudasma, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) who was arrested in connection with the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, has been admitted under strict police guards to the Government Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad for a hip joint operation.
Mr. Chudasma was admitted after the special CBI court rejected his plea for bail for 10 weeks to undergo the operation in a private hospital.
Doctors said his condition would be thoroughly tested before fixing a date for the operation and the period of his stay in the hospital.
Asked to file reply
In another development, Jyotsna Yagnik, the special court judge hearing the Naroda-Patiya communal riot case, has asked Babu Bajrangi, a noted Bajrang Dal leader and an accused in the case, to file his reply by June 29 to a complaint from the advocate of one of the riot victims, R.A. Sheikh, on having threatened the lawyer with “dire consequences.”
Another advocate had also filed an affidavit in support of Mr. Sheikh's complaint.
Mr. Bajrangi's reply to the complaint would be in addition to an undertaking he would be required to give that he would not approach the victims, the complainants or their lawyers for any purpose.
