Amid raging controversy over the alleged terror links of Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in a fake encounter near Ahmedabad nine years ago, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday said he could not disclose what Mumbai terror convict David Headley told the National Investigation Agency (NIA) about Ishrat two years ago.
Mr. Shinde refused to divulge anything as he was bound by a secrecy pact with the United States. “Whatever Headley has said, it was before the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]. And we have an agreement between FBI and NIA. So, we cannot disclose it,” he told journalists here when asked whether the U.S. national had named Ishrat for her alleged links with a Pakistan-based terror group. While in the U.S.’ FBI’s custody in 2011, the NIA had interrogated Headley about the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks case.
Mr. Shinde also said the NIA was yet to submit its report on Headley’s statement on Ishrat. Notably, after the CBI filed its first charge sheet earlier this month in the case terming the encounter as fake, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh had met Mr. Shinde and asked him to clarify on Ishrat’s alleged links with terrorists.
Former Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai has said the NIA report had no mention about Ishrat, but clarified that those accompanying her were terrorists when the encounter took place. Two of them were Pakistanis trained by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
“Her name was not mentioned in the NIA report submitted to me,” Mr. Pillai said, in whose tenure the NIA had submitted the report to the Home Ministry.
Mr. Pillai, however, said there were intelligence reports of Ishrat being in touch with the terrorists, but he was not sure whether she was innocent or a cover used by the terrorists. “There were intelligence inputs about her links with the LeT… Her name was mentioned as a martyr on LeT’s website but it was later removed. One has to keep all these things in mind while passing any judgement… It was very complex,” he told a news agency.
