In a fresh twist to the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, a top Intelligence Bureau (IB) official has told the CBI that his input on Ishrat's link to lashkar-e-Tayyeba (leT) was genuine. The 1979 batch IPS officer, Rajinder Kumar, now a special director-rank officer in the IB, is also learnt to have told the CBI that there was a threat, particularly from the leT, to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s life in the aftermath of the Godhra riots.
Kumar was summoned to the CBI headquarters on Friday where he was asked about the input generated on the possible assassination attempt on Modi.
Incidentally, the BJP had objected to IB officials being quizzed and has alleged that the UPA is trying to misuse the intelligence agency to frame the Gujarat Chief Minister.
Kumar was posted in Gujarat between 2002 and 2006, a period which covered post-Godhra riots and the Ishrat Jahan encounter. During this period, the IB had sent input to the Gujarat Police about Ishrat's leT links and her motive to assassinate Modi. Ishrat was a second-year Bachelor of Science student at Mumbai’s Guru Nanak Khalsa College.
News agency PTI quoted Kumar as telling the CBI investigators that he did his duty by sending the alert and he was not at all involved in the encounter. Rights activists and Modi detractors have claimed that the Ishrat’s encounter near Gandhinagar on June 15, 2004, was stage-managed. Three other alleged leT operatives were killed in the encounter.
The case has seen a tug of war between the Gujarat Government and the Centre with the State Police justifying the encounter based on the IB inputs. The CBI on the instruction of the Gujarat High Court took over the probe of the encounter in which 19-year-old Ishrat, Javed Sheikh, alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in Ahmedabad during an alleged encounter by police led by DIG DG Vanzara.
The CBI has also analysed intelligence input generated from the IB cautioning the Gujarat Police about leT's plan to attack BJP leaders lK Advani, Narendra Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia, they said.
The probe agency will also investigate the inputs received by the Gujarat Police that led to identification of a blue car in which Ishrat was travelling as the vehicle in which the alleged terrorists were travelling, they said.
