SC ruling on Ishrat Jahan jolts Narendra Modi

New Delhi : Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi suffered a jolt on Monday when the Supreme Court ruled that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a joint commissioner of Delhi police will probe the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

The ruling came as a setback to Modi when the BJP camp was about to rejoice over a report that the Supreme Court monitored SIT, headed by ex-CBI Chief R K Raghavan, to probe the 2002 post Godhra riots, had given a clean chit to Modi.

The Supreme Court has dismissed the Gujarat government’s petition challenging an investigation by the SIT on the Ishrat Jahan encounter case in which Jahan was killed as an Islamist terrorist.

The Supreme Court said the SIT team headed by the Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police Karnail Singh will probe the case.

A special investigation team has been appointed by the Gujarat High Court to investigate the case.

Ishrat Jahan Shamim Raza was a teenager who was killed in Ahmedabad in 2004 in a police encounter along with three others. The police claimed she was an islamist terrorist though allegations flew that the encounter was staged.

The police alleged that all four were Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives involved in a plot to assassinate Narendra Modi.