CBI gives Amit Shah clean chit in Ishrat Jahan encounter case

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday gave a clean chit to former Gujarat home minister and key Narendra Modi aide Amit Shah in connection with the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

Submitting its report to a Special CBI court here, the investigating agency said that there was clinching or conclusive evidence to accuse Shah of being involved or even ordering the encounter shooting of Ishrat Jahan in 2004, which eventually turned out to be a fake one.

Wednesday's verdict was a follow-up to the CBI giving Shah a clean chit in February this year in connection with a supplementary chargesheet.

Reports then quoted CBI sources as saying that Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials, including Rajinder Kumar will be chargesheeted under conspiracy in the encounter case.

Rajinder Kumar was involved in the planning from the beginning till the end, and he allegedly planned and executed the encounter with the help of Gujrat Police.

The Ishrat Jahan encounter case took place on June 15, 2004, and involved encounter killings of Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year old girl from Mumbai, and three men: Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Gulam Sheikh), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar who were alleged links to terrorists, by officers of the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch.

The encounter was carried out allegedly by a team led by Deputy Inspector General of Police D.G. Vanjara, who was later jailed for his alleged involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

The police then alleged that Ishrat and her associates were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives involved in a plot to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Later, an investigation was launched into the allegations that Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter.

After a long investigation, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged.

That decision was challenged by the Gujarat State government, and taken to the High Court.

On July 3, 2013, the CBI has filed its first chargesheet in an Ahmedabad court saying that the shooting was a staged encounter carried out in cold blood.

In June 2013, Intelligence Bureau chief Asif Ibrahim told the office of the Prime Minister and Home Minister of India that the IB had enough evidence to prove that Ishrat was a part of an LeT module which planned to kill Modi and L.K. Advani.