The CBI on Tuesday questioned Intelligence Bureau special director Rajinder Kumar over his alleged role in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. Sources said the CBI questioned Mr Kumar for over three hours in the camp office of a paramilitary outfit at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, even as the investigative agency claimed it had concrete evidence to suggest Mr Kumar had an important role in the incident in which Ishrat and three others were killed by the Gujarat police in 2004.
Investigating officials claimed Mr Kumar had questioned Ishrat while she was allegedly in the illegal custody of the Gujarat police. This is the second time the CBI has questioned Mr Kumar on this case. Sources said during questioning Mr Kumar was evasive and repeatedly said he was not aware of exact details or sequence of events as the incident occurred around nine years ago.
Mr Kumar was SIB joint director in Ahmedabad when the intelligence input on Ishrat Jahan was generated. The CBI suspects the intelligence official had a key role in the entire conspiracy. Mr Kumar has insisted during questioning that giving intelligence inputs doesn’t necessarily mean that he directed the state police to carry out the encounter.
The CBI is now probing if IB officials participated actively in the encounter or not. The CBI’s move to question Mr Kumar had strained its relations with the IB,
and Union home secretary R.K. Singh had to convene a meeting of CBI director Ranjit Sinha with IB chief Asif Ibrahim.
The CBI has also been directed by the Gujarat high court to file its chargesheet by July 4. But it is still unclear if it will arrest Mr Kumar, number three in the IB hierarchy, who is due to retire on July 31.
Sources said even if the CBI decides not to arrest Mr Kumar, it will spell out his role in the encounter in the chargesheet, and await the court’s direction on what action to take.