Gujarat police officer PP Pandey who was reinstated after getting bail in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case
Prithvi Pal Pandey, one of Gujarat's top police officers accused of staging a fake encounter to kill Mumbai teen Ishrat Jahan and three others in 2004, has said that the killing was not staged and was carried out in the line of duty.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV while on a morning walk in the heart of Ahmedabad, Mr Pandey said, "Everybody was on duty. It wasn't that we (police officers) were on leave when the encounter took place."
Last week, Mr Pandey, 58, was reinstated as Additional Director General of Police for Law and Order in the Gujarat Police.
Two years ago, the same Gujarat Police had declared him an absconder when he disappeared from court for four months. He surrendered in August 2013.
The former Joint Commissioner of the Ahmedabad crime branch is one the senior-most officers charged in the Ishrat Jehan case. He has been accused of being one of the main conspirators in the case and has 12 charges against him that include murder, kidnapping, abduction and wrongful confinement.
Mr Pandey insists his reinstatement is fair. "It is a just order," he said outside his service bungalow. "Unless you are convicted, you are innocent. That is the law of the land."
When asked whether he shouldn't turn down official postings till he is cleared, he said, "By the time I am cleared it will take centuries. I would have retired by then."
Those fighting encounter cases in court worry that the reinstatement of senior cops will bring prosecution to a dead end as they might influence witnesses who are policemen. "They are not going to conduct this encounter in front of people. So policemen are the main witnesses," said Nirjari Sinha, one of the petitioners in the cases. "It will be very difficult to prove the case."
Mr Pandey said there was no question of influencing the witnesses - his subordinates in the force - as most of them have retired. "They are senior citizens now; I am a junior citizen," he said.