Ishrat case: Pandey, Singhal get court nod to visit abroad

A special CBI Court today granted permission to in-charge Gujarat DGP P P Pandey, an accused in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case who is currently on bail, to travel abroad for two months.
The court presided by Judge S J Raje, also allowed another IPS officer G L Singhal, Pandey's co-accused, to travel abroad for a month.
The Judge gave the nod to the police officers by modifying their bail conditions that barred them from leaving India.
Both Pandey and Singhal were asked to deposit Rs 2 lakh each as security money.
The two IPS officers, chargesheeted in the alleged fake encounter case of 2004 and currently out on bail, had moved the Court with pleas to modify their bail conditions so that they could go abroad.

Pandey told the court he wanted to visit the UK to meet his son and his family and also conduct research for his PhD.

Singhal, on the other hand, sought relief on the ground he needed to visit universities abroad in connection with higher education of his daughter.
The two police officers were named along with five others in the first charge sheet filed by CBI in July 2013.
The case relates to alleged fake encounter killing of Mumbai-based 19-year-old college girl Ishrat Jahan and others accompanying her, Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana, by police on the city's outskirts on June 15, 2004. The police had then claimed they were on a terror mission.

Other officers named in the charge sheet included N K Amin, D G Vanjara and their subordinates Tarun Barot, J G Parmar and Anaju Chaudhary.
In the charge sheet, the central agency had said the encounter, a joint operation between Gujarat Police and Intelligence Bureau, was stage-managed.
Pandey, Director of Anti-Corruption Bureau, was given the additional post of in-charge DGP last month, while Singhal serves as Group Commandant in State Reserve Police.