The much hyped and discussed alleged fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan comes to closure by denying permission to prosecute ex-IB official. The government has turned down the request of CBI for granting prosecution sanction of four IB officials, including a retired Special Director Rajender Kumar, who were allegedly involved in the conspiracy behind the killing of Ishrat Jahan and three others.

The Central Bureau of Investigation had been investigating the case and accused the Intelligence Bureau officer Rajinder Kumar of murder and criminal conspiracy and booked him under Arms Act. The agency had also accused three serving IB officers, P Mittal, MK Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede of conspiracy and illegal confinement in the case.

In the alleged fake encounter, Ishrat Jahan, her friend Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh along with two suspected Pakistanis named Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were gunned down by Gujarat crime branch officials. The crime branch had claimed that the four of them were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives who came to Gujarat with a conspiracy to kill the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Almost all accused in the fake encounter got bail from the court. IPS officers D.G. Vanzara and P.P. Pandey were granted bail and are out. N.K. Amin, another accused, is reinstated by the Gujarat Home Department as Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) in the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) at Gandhinagar.

The CBI claimed that Mr Kumar, was not only involved in the conspiracy, but had also provided the weapons used to kill the four persons. The AK-56 was planted at the scene of the shooting to portray the victims as terrorists, was also provided by him. The Intelligence Bureau said taht its officers had only alerted the Gujarat police to the possibility of Ishrat and the others are affiliated to the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, its officers did not authorise or participate in the alleged fake encounter.

By Premji