In what is being viewed as a major setback for the Narendra Modi Government on the contentious issue of high profile “fake encounters,’’ the Intelligence Bureau has conveyed to the CBI that it had merely issued “a general alert regarding threat perception to the Gujarat chief minister” and there was no specific information that Ishrat Jahan and her three associates were going to assassinate Mr Modi.
The IB’s response is at complete variance with the claims of the Gujarat police whose basic premise for the encounter was that it had specific information from the central IB that Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative Ishrat Jahan and the others had hatched a conspiracy to kill the chief minister.
Interestingly, the CBI had written to the IB a few days ago seeking details of the confidential correspondence with the Gujarat police regarding intelligence inputs given on the Ishrat case. This was after the CBI could not get the relevant records either from the state crime branch or the Anti Terror Squad with the two agencies claiming they had given the records to the Special Investigations Team (SIT).
Investigations into this much publicised fake encounter case were handed over to the CBI on the directions of the Gujarat high court after a court appointed SIT prima facie found that Ishrat and her three colleagues were killed in a fake encounter.
Interestingly, intelligence sources claimed, the IB in its response to the investigating agency has also clarified that it keeps sending out routine advisories related to VIP security and the one sent to the Gujarat government was part of the same exercise.
“Clearly, the information regarding Ishrat and her associates was developed by the state ATS and may be they had them on their radar for quite sometime. Now its for the CBI to get to the bottom of this controversy,’’an intelligence official said.
Meanwhile, the Modi government has come under considerable flak as at least four fake encounter cases are being investigated by the CBI.