Even as the CBI was preparing to file the supplementary charge sheet in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, Mukul Sinha, counsel for the Javed Pillai family, demanded that the former Gujarat minister of state for home (MoS) Amit Shah be summoned.
Sinha claimed that the call data records (CDRs) of the accused policemen had indicated that Shah could have been aware of the conspiracy behind the fake encounter.
Javed was among the four persons who were killed in a fake encounter on June 15, 2004, by the Gujarat Police. The CBI had filed its first charge sheet recently against seven policemen.
Though the CBI had claimed that the fake encounter was a joint operation by the Gujarat Police and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), it is yet to charge sheet any officers from the IB.
Giving his analysis of the CDRs, Sinha said that the timing of two calls between Shah and former director-general of police and an accused in the case, Vanzara, were significant.
One call, he alleged, made less than seven hours before the encounter, and the other just after the killing indicated that Shah could have been part of a larger conspiracy.
He further claimed that statements made under 164 of the CrPC by some of the accused corroborate that Shah was aware of the fake encounter.
Sinha said: “Two calls made between Shah and Vanzara on June 14 at 10:57 pm and the other at 6:10 am on June 15 indicates sufficient evidence to summon Shah. Additionally, there are 164 statements which indict the former MoS as well.”
Sinha further claimed that CDRs show that between June 1 and June 15, the main conspirators Rajinder Kumar, P P Pandey and Vanzara, stayed in touch with each other after the first fake input was created by Kumar.
Javed’s CDR shows that on June 6, 2004, at 11:18 pm, he was contacted while driving through Karnataka from a PCO in Gandhinagar.
He further stated that the CDR location of another accused policeman, N K Amin, established that he was camping at Vasad between June 10 and 12, 2004. Javed and Ishrat were abducted at the Vasad toll naka at around 1:30 pm.