JOIN USThe Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will file a charge sheet in an Ahmedabad court on Thursday, accusing eight Gujarat police officers of killing Ishrat Jahan in a fake encounter.
But the CBI is unlikely to name as accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his former home minister Amit Shah and a senior Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer in the first charge sheet to be filed before the High Court as, according to agency sources, they need time to probe larger conspiracies behind the encounter.
The investigative agency is likely to leave it to the court to also take a decision after presenting all the facts collected so far on the suspected role of the political leaders and officers.
Otherwise, agency has the option of filling a supplementary charge sheet depending on the progress of investigation.
CBI director Ranjit Sinha told reporters on Monday that the charge sheet would be filed on Thursday, just as the agency had assured the court.
According to a news channel, the charge sheet affirms that Ishrat and three others, who were
accused of being Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists, were shot dead in a fake encounter by eight Gujarat Police personnel.
They include, ATS DIG D G Vanzara, DCP N K Amin and Ahmedabad Crime Branch officers G L Singhal, Tarun Barot, J G Parmar, Bharat Patel and Anuja Chaudhary.
The CBI, a news channel reported, will claim that the evidence is not enough to prosecute Modi and his aide Shah at this stage, and that is why they will seek more time to probe the larger conspiracy.
The charge sheet is expected to refer to the alleged conversation Vanzara had with the then Ahemdabad-stationed IB joint director Rajendra Kumar, who has since become Special Director, reportedly claiming that “white dadhi (white beard)” — allegedly referring to Modi — and “black dadhi (black beard)” — allegedly referring to Shah — were informed and had approved the operation leading to the encounter.
The CBI has got Gujarat police officer G L Singhal’s statement under Section 164, which is admissible as evidence in court, giving an eyewitness account of Vanzara and Kumar’s conversation.
While Kumar claims that he merely shared intelligence input about an LeT module attempting to attack Modi, CBI believes that he went beyond his brief and was party to the conspiracy hatched by state police personnel to bump off the quartet after keeping them in custody.CBI’s move to corner Kumar in the fake encounter case is on questionable evidence, believe home ministry officials.
They are of the view that if Kumar had met the accused in illegal confinement, the IB officer should be booked for not complaining to the police about it, which is a minor offence as compared to charging him of murdering by way of being aware of the stage-managed encounter.
Top IB officers met newly appointed Home Secretary Anil Goswami requesting, him to take a firm stand to defend Kumar, as otherwise this move by the CBI has the potential of exposing covert operations.