Ahmedabad:
19-year-old college student Ishrat Jahan was killed on June 15, 2004 along with three others on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The Gujarat Police said that the group was armed and on its way to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Today, the CBI has said that's incorrect, and that Ishrat and the others were killed in cold blood in a joint operation between the state's police and the Intelligence Bureau (or IB). However, the agency has not attributed any motive to the killing.
The four people killed were Ishrat Jahan, her friend Javed Sheikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar.
The core of the CBI's case is based on the testimony of about 20 junior policemen who have helped establish that the four people who were killed were abducted and illegally confined at three different farm-houses in and around Ahmedabad over a period of two months. This is how the encounter unfolded, according to the CBI:
The junior policemen have testified that the man known as Zeeshan had been brought into Ahmedabad as early on 27th April, 48 days before the encounter and was watched over in the police closely.
Amjad was driven to Ahmedabad by Ishrat's friend, Javed, on May 27, and kept at another farm-house on the outskirts of Ahmedabad by the Gujarat Police. There are different unconfirmed theories about why Javed handed over Amjad to the police.
Javed and Ishrat , headed towards Ahmedabad in a blue Indica from Nasik in Maharashtra, were picked up by the police at a check post in Vasad near Anand, on June 12 and taken to a third farmhouse.
On June 13, the Gujarat station chief of the Intelligence Bureau, Rajinder Kumar, interrogated Ishrat at the farmhouse where she was being kept illegally.
On June 14, Mr Kumar allegedly met with senior police officers DG Vanzara and PP Pandey and the plan for the shooting was finalized.
On June 14, a police officer was deputed to collect weapons from the Intelligence Bureau office. These included an AK-56 which were planted at the site of the shooting to make it seem like Ishrat and the others were armed.
On the morning of June 15, a police officer drove all four of them in Javed's Indica to the Kotarpur Waterworks road where they were gunned down by a group of policemen now accused of murder and destruction of evidence.