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.
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."
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."
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