Congress again misusing CBI in Ishrat Jahan case: BJP

Stressing that the Ishrat Jahan shootout was not "fake", the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday said the Congress-led government at the centre was manipulating the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to frame BJP leaders.

Party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi told reporters here that the shootout that killed Israt Jahan was conducted on the basis of information received from the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which was forwarded to state police.

The IB had conveyed that Ishrat Jahan was an LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) operative.

"The state police did not act on it's own, they acted on a report of the IB," Lekhi told reporters.

"She was an LeT operative, and she was armed. Should the police have waited to let another incident happen, like David Headley," she asked.

"The first affidavit filed by IB said she was an LeT operative. The question is: On whose instructions was the affidavit changed? The government is once against misusing the CBI to meet its political ends, just as it got the affidavit on the coal scam vetted," the BJP spokesperson alleged.

Mumbai college girl Ishrat Jahan, Pranesh Gopinath Pilai, Amjad Ali and Jishan Johar were killed by Gujarat Police in an allegedly staged shootout June 15, 2004, in Ahmedabad.

The name of BJP general secretary and close confidant of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, who served at the time as state home minister, was also linked to the case.

The Gujarat High Court Tuesday directed the CBI to streamline its investigation in the Ishrat Jahan case and file a charge-sheet by July 4.