The Gujarat high court here on Thursday transferred the Ishrat Jahan probe to the Supreme Court-appointed SIT.
Taking away the probe from the Gujarat police and also rejecting demand for a CBI probe in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, the Gujarat high court division bench of J
ustice Jayant Patel and Justice Abhilasha Kumari on Thursday transferred the probe to the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) headed by former CBI director R.K. Raghavan. The court passed its order on the petition filed by Shamina Kauser, mother of Ishrat Jahan and Gopinath Pillai, father of Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, killed in the same encounter.
They had demanded CBI probe in the encounter killings by the Ahmedabad police in June 2004, alleging that it was a case of staged killing.
Mumbai-based Ishrat was killed in an encounter along with Javed Ghulam Sheikh, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani by the crime branch officials near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
A team of the Ahmedabad crime branch police, headed by DCP D.G. Vanjara, executed the encounter. Mr Vanjara is now in jail as the prime accused in Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounters.
The four persons were dubbed as operatives of Pakistan-based LeT and were on a mission to kill Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
The court has found the investigation done by a SIT of the Gujarat police unsatisfactory and therefore the case has been handed over to the SIT, which will instil confidence and credibility in the investigation process. The SIT has been asked to submit its status report in three months after taking over the probe from the Gujarat police.
Besides Raghavan, two other IPS officers Y.C. Modi of Assam cadre and Dr Venketesan of Maharashtra cadre are members of the SIT, which has middle-level officials from the Gujarat police.
The Gujarat high court has also said that judicial magistrate S.P. Tamang’s report has a recommendatory value. In his magisterial inquiry report, based on medical and forensic evidence, he had concluded that the encounter was staged and four persons were killed in “cold blood”.