Ishrat case: Her file never came to me; allegations are false, says Sushil kumar Shinde

New Delhi: As the controversy over Ishrat Jahan's second affidavit, which allegedly dropped her LeT link, continues to rage, former union home minister Sushil kumar Shinde on Friday sought to distance himself from the row and said that her file had never reached his table.

“The file (Ishrat Jahan's case file) never came to me, the allegations are baseless, ANI quoted Shinde as saying.

Meanwhile former union home secretary GK Pillai, who created a political storm after his disclosure in a TV interview that her second affidavit was changed at the political level, said that the “NIA report has no mention of Ishrat Jahan”.

He added, “Unless there is any proper investigation carried out, we'll have to give her benefit of doubt. “I don't think there is any conclusive evidence against her.”

What could be a major blow to the Congress party over its handling of the sensational Ishrat Jahan encounter case, ex-home secretary Pillai claimed that the decision to erase the word LeT from her affidavit was taken at a political level.

“It was a very successful intelligence operation. That we managed to entice the LeT to send their shooters into India, and that we were able to monitor their activities in India, to catch them..I think it was a very successful operation from the intelligence standpoint,” Pillai told Times Now in an interview recently.

“In one of the affidavits there was a mention of LeT operatives, but in the other one, that aspect was deleted.”

“I really wouldn't know because that was not done at my level, it was done at a political level,” he said.

Asked if Ishrat Jehan was a terrorist, he said, “I would say that she knew that something was wrong. Otherwise an unmarried Muslim girl would not go with another married person to different places, spend nights out and so on and so forth, which is not the normal pattern at all.”