Gujarat HC to hear Ishrat Jahan case tomorrow

Ahmedabad: After the CBI filed the first chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case earlier this month, Gujarat High Court, which is monitoring the probe, will hold a further hearing on Friday.

The CBI, which filed the charge sheet in the lower court here on July 3, has termed the encounter as fake, and a joint operation by Gujarat Police and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). It has named seven senior Gujarat police officers as accused, and several others as witnesses in the case. Suspended IPS officers G L Singhal, N K Amin, D G Vanzara, retired DSP J G Parmar, DySP Tarun Barot, commando Anaju Chaudhary and absconding Additional Director General of Police P P Pandey have been named as accused. As per the chargesheet, Vanzara, who allegedly had differences with Singhal over killing Ishrat, had told latter that he and the then IB joint director Rajinder Kumar had a nod from the top political authorities for the encounter. The CBI, which is expected to file a supplementary charge sheet, may name some more officers in it. Nineteen-year-old Mumbai-based girl Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were gunned down in an encounter by Gujarat police on June 15, 2004 on the outskirts of the city. The police had then claimed that the four were on a mission to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. PTI