Ishrat Jahan: SIT member says encounter was fake

Ahmedabad : In an apparent blow to the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat, a member of the Special Investigating Team (SIT) probing the 2004 Ishrat Jahan case dissented with the majority on the SIT team and said the death of the girl was a result of a fake encounter.

The clear division within the SIT came to the fore after Supreme Court appointed SIT member Satish Verma said that the encounter was fake and filed an affidavit in the Gujarat High Court.

Verma pointed out that there was sufficient evidence to prove that the encounter was fake and suggested that fresh FIR should be lodged in the case against the suspected policemen.

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 Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

However, Satish Verma’s dissented with the majority view in the SIT.

On Friday, the court ordered that any dissent should be resolved withing the SIT and majority view would be taken while the dissent would be taken note of as well.

In December last, the Supreme Court ruled that a SIT headed by a joint commissioner of Delhi police will probe the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

The Supreme Court had dismissed the Gujarat government’s petition challenging an investigation by the SIT on the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

The SIT team is headed by the Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police Karnail Singh.