JOIN USTen police personnel, who might have spilled the beans in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter, have not been named in the CBI’s first chargesheet after their names figured in the agency’s original FIR and may be let off.
“In this chargesheet we have not included ten of those accused who were named in our FIR, and soon we would be submitting a report under section 169 of the Criminal Procedure Code with regard to them,” according to CBI lawyer Ejaz Khan.
Under section 169, an investigating officer can request the court to release an accused when evidence is inadequate, or if there are other reasonable grounds.
The CBI has recorded several statements before the magistrate. The original CBI FIR of December 2011 had 20 accused, including the aforesaid ten — mostly constable and commando —level officers, barring a police inspector. These men are: Devendragiri Goswami, H P Agrawat, P G Vaghela, R I Patel, K M Vaghela, C J Goswami, Bhala Bharwad, Vikram Chauhan, Kalu Desai and Bharat Patel (inspector), all posted at Detection of Crime Branch, Ahmedabad, which carried out the encounter, which the CBI held in its first chargesheet was fake.
CBI sources also said that IPS officer G L Singhal too provided critical information and material during his interrogation. Singhal, alongwith four other accused police officers, has been granted bail by the court as the CBI failed to file chargesheet within the mandatory 90 days of arrest.
But Singhal figures in the chargesheet. Other accused named in the chargesheet are: IPS officers D G Vanzara, P P Pandey, DySPs N K Amin, Tarun Barot, J G Parmar and commando Anaju Chaudhary.
Probe was on with regard to roles of former state DGP K R Kaushik and the then crime branch police inspector V D Vanar, the CBI said.
As per the CBI, the conspiracy to abduct, confine and kill Ishrat, Javed Sheikh, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana was planned by D G Vanzara, Additional DGP P P Pandey and the then Gujarat Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau Joint Director Rajendra Kumar.