Ishrat Jahan case: Former IB officers charged with murder

Former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah not named in chargesheet

CBI today lodged a second charge sheet in the Ishrat Jehan fake encounter case against former Intelligence Bureau Special Director Rajinder Kumar and three officers slapping murder and conspiracy charges on them, but did not name former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah who was questioned by the agency in the case.

Notwithstanding denial of sanction to prosecute the officers by Law ministry, the CBI named Kumar, a 1979-batch IPS officer who retired last year, and P Mittal, M K Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede.

They have been charged under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), murder, wrongful confinement, kidnapping, wrongful concealment.

Kumar has been additionally charged under Arms Act with CBI alleging that he had provided arms to the accused on June 14, 2004, a day before the encounter took place.

The CBI alleged in its supplementary charge sheet that Kumar, who was the then Joint Director of IB, handed over arms and ammunition to G Singhal of Gujarat police who onpassed the weapons to Tarun Barot through Nizamuddin Sayeed. These arms and ammunition were used in executing the crime.

The name Shah, a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi did not figure in the charge sheet despite allegations made against him by Singhal.

CBI sources said that the matter was still under investigation and also mentioned that the agency was filing the charge sheet without any sanction of prosecution by the Law ministry.

The agency has also requested the court to slap an additional charge under Sec.193 of IPC against retired Deputy Superintendent of Police J G Parmar (already chargesheeted).

This section deals with punishment for intentionally giving false evidence in any of a judicial proceedings, or fabricating false evidence for the purpose of being used in any stage of judicial process.

The CBI alleged that Parmar had concealed the fact that he had kept the car with him in which the four -- Ishrat Jehan, Javaid Sheikh alias Parnesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar -- were killed.

CBI counsel Ejaz Khan told the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate that the IB officials had conspired to eliminate the four.