Officials met to discuss strategy to obstruct Ishrat probe:CBI

Recorded conversations of nine police officials, who attended a meeting in November 2011 to allegedly decide the strategy to obstruct the probe in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter killing case, is part of the documents submitted by CBI in its charge sheet filed before a special CBI court.

Accused and suspended IPS officer G L Singhal, had produced two pen drives one of which contained recorded telephonic conversations between him and then Minister of State (Home) Amit Shah while the other pen drive contained recorded conversations of the nine officials.

The meeting, according to the CBI charge sheet, held in November 2011, was attended by Advocate General Kamal Trivedi, G L Singhal, Rohit Verma, advocate friend of Singhal, Girish Murmu, secretary to the Chief Minister, A K Sharma, then IG (Gandhinagar range), Praful Patel, then MoS (Home), Pradeepsinh Jadeja, then MoS (Law), former minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama and another accused Tarun Barot.

The meeting was held in a private chamber of the Advocate General, the chargesheet further states, adding 'it discussed the strategy to obstruct the investigation in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.'

At that time, the Gujarat High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team was conducting a preliminary probe in the encounter case.

The case was handed over to CBI by the High Court after SIT concluded that prima facie the encounter seemed to be fake.

Seven police officers, including Singhal and Barot, have been charge sheeted by the central investigation agency in the encounter case of 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar on June 15, 2004, on the outskirts of the city.

Gujarat police had then claimed the four were on a mission to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

However, CBI in its charge sheet stated the encounter was fake and carried out jointly by Gujarat police and IB.