Ishrat Jahan was killed in "fake" encounter in Gujarat: CBI

CBI today held that 19-year-old college student Ishrat Jahan was killed in a "fake" encounter in cold blood here in 2004 in a joint operation by Gujarat police and the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau, a development that comes as a major embarrassment to the Narendra Modi government.
The chargesheet filed by CBI in a local cour, which also raises questions over the role of Intelligence Bureau, does not say whether the girl from Mumbai and three others killed with her were terrorists saying there was no mandate from the High Court to investigate their status.
Nor does it name any political leaders in the conspiracy.

It, however, made clear CBI found no evidence that they had come to Gujarat to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The CBI chargesheeted seven Gujarat police officers including absconding Additional DGP P P Pandey and suspended DIG D G Vanzara charging them with criminal conspiracy, abduction, wrongful confinement and murder
"The encounter was a joint operation between Gujarat police and Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) of the state," CBI said in the charge sheet, adding, "the encounter was fake".

The CBI told the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate H S Khutwad that their investigation has established offence against all the seven police officers charge sheeted in the case.

Investigation is going on against four Intelligence Bureau officers, including its Special Director Rajinder Kumar, and three other officers-- P Mittal, M K Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede, it said.
A supplementary charge sheet would be filed against IB officers once the investigation was over, the court was told.
The chargesheet, which is bound to open a can of worms, is the first instance in Gujarat encounter cases where the IB has been implicated, saying that Intelligence Bureau officials were involved from the time of abduction, to illegal confinement and killling of the four people.