After Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Tulsi Prajapati and Ishrat Jahan, the Gujarat police is now facing another alleged fake encounter case — that of Sadiq Jamal Mehtar, who was gunned down by an Ahmedabad police team led by now jailed IPS D.G. Vanjara, a prime accused in all the fake encounter cases and currently in Sabarmati Central Jail.
The police had shot Jamal dead in Ahmedabad in a January 2003 encounter when he was supposedly on a mission to target Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, BJP leader L.K. Advani and VHP leader Pravin Togadia. After the encounter, the police had claimed that the deceased was linked to the Pakistan-based LeT.
Subsequently, the Ahmedabad police crime branch, which carried out the encounter, also investigated it and filed a summary report stating that his three accomplices mentioned in the FIR were “not traceable” and the summary report was submitted to the Ahmedabad metropolitan court.
Acting on a petition moved by Sadiq’s brother Shabir Jamal, Justice Akil Kureshi of the Gujarat high court, has directed the metropolitan court and the police to produce all documents related to the encounter case before the high court. The court has also directed the police to produce a report of intelligence inputs that suggested Sadiq was a LeT man on a mission to target leaders.
The court has asked the state to explain if Sadiq was an LeT operative and had planned to target Mr Modi and others in October 2002. He was arrested by the Bhavnagar police in November 2002 in a gambling case and then released.
The high court also asked how the police could let him go once again, on November 24 in Ahmedabad, when he was spotted with a revolver at a public meeting of the CM during the runup to the state Assembly polls. The police FIR lodged after the encounter mentioned he was spotted on November 24 in Maninagar area, Mr Modi’s Assembly constituency.