Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government on Wednesday transferred IPS officers PP Pande, GL Singhal and ACP Tarun
Barot following a suggestion by the High Court bench hearing
the 2004 police encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others.
The three senior police officials are connected with the
encounter of Ishrat and three others -- Javed Sheikh alias
Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar on the
outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
Transfer of these police officers comes a day before the
hearing in the case by the Gujarat High court.
Pande, an ADGP rank officer who is heading the state CID,
has been relieved from the additional charge of Additional
Director General of Police, state Intelligence Bureau (IB),
with immediate effect.
ADGP (law and order) S K Sinha has been given the charge
as head of the state IB.
Singhal, posted as Superintendent of Police with the
state`s Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS), has been transfered to
Vadodara city as Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 1) while
Barot, who was heading the special operations group (SOG) in
the city, has been transfered as Mehsana district`s
departmental police officer, a post which was lying vacant.
The transfer order issued today by the state Home
department is dated April 19. Incidentally, April 19 was
declared as a government holiday due to the elections for the
Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC).
On April 8, the HC had observed that despite its earlier
direction in January, and requisition of transfer of the trio
by the special investigation team (SIT) probing the case, they
were not transferred.
During the Ishrat encounter in 2004, Pande was heading
the city crime branch, Singhal was DCP (crime) and Barot a
police inspector with the crime branch.
On June 15, 2004 Jahan was killed along with Sheikh and
the two Pakistani nationals Ali and Ghani in an encounter.
Jahan was alleged to be a member of Lashker-e-Toiba`s
suicide squad who had been inducted by top LeT operative
Muzamil.
A controversy broke out after Jahan`s family claimed that
she was just a student and filed an appeal in the court
stating so. Gujarat Police had claimed that the terrorists
were in the state to target Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
PTI
