Zeenews Bureau
Ahmedabad: In a major turn of events, the Special Investigative Team (SIT) probing the infamous Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, on Friday summoned twelve police officers accused in the case.
The officers summoned by the SIT include Deputy Superintendent of Police Tarun Barot, GS Singhal, PP Pandey and KR Kaushik. It should be noted that Barot and Singhal had previously appeared before the SIT in March.
However, it has been reported that all the twelve officers went on leave immediately after being summoned by the SIT. The exact reasons for their leave have not been ascertained so far.
Earlier in January this year, Satish Verma, a member of the Special Investigation Team, had claimed before the Gujarat High Court that the 2004 killings could have taken place in a fake encounter.
Verma, a senior IPS officer, who is part of the three-member probe team set up by the high court last year, had also said that a second FIR with regard to the encounter needs to be filed.
In an affidavit filed before a division bench of Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari, the IPS officer said, "The illustrative evidence brings out well founded allegation of a fake encounter. This is different from the version contained in the FIR".
He enumerates various pieces of scientific evidence that go against the version in the FIR filed by the city crime branch after the encounter of Ishrat and three others -- Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar, Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani -- on June 15, 2004.
First Published: Friday, April 29, 2011, 13:52