New Delhi:
Was Ishrat Jehan a terrorist? And who was to blame for her death? The central government is taking a huge new step to distance itself from the encounter in which 19- year-old Ishrat and 3 others were shot dead by the Gujarat police.
The Centre is all set to revise its controversial affidavit on the Ishrat encounter. Sources have told NDTV that a new draft of the affidavit is being considered by the Attorney General and the Home Ministry. The original affidavit said that Ishrat Jehan had links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a fact used by the BJP to defend the killing of Ishrat and her companions in Ahemdabad.
A recent enquiry, headed by Judge SP Tamang, concluded that Ishrat had been killed by the police in cold blood; officers involved in the encounter wanted to impress chief minister Narendra Modi. The report - known as the Tamang report - said that Ishrat and her boyfriend, Javed were kidnapped from Mumbra outside Mumbai, and were taken to a farmhouse near Ahemdabad. They were kept there along with 2 young Muslim men. All 4 were then killed and placed in a car on a highway. Guns were placed to make it seem like Ishrat and the others were involved in a shootout with the police.
Stung by these findings, the Gujarat government has rejected the Tamang report; the BJP says there is no doubt that Ishrat and the others were planning to assassinate Narendra Modi. Evidence of this, it said, lies in the fact that the central government had alerted Gujarat to the possibility of Ishrat acting as a terrorist. In an affidavit filed in the Gujarat High Court by the Home Ministry, the central government stated that Ishrat and her boyfriend often travelled together as a couple, and that the boyfriend seemed to have links with the LeT.
The Modi government claims this affidavit is damning evidence of Ishrat's real identity. The central government has been arguing that it only relayed intelligence reports. Now, the government is revising that affidavit. It will argue that the intelligence inputs it received and passed on were not conclusive and need further investigation. It will also ask the court to decide whether Ishrat's death should be investigated by the CBI.
The Centre is all set to revise its controversial affidavit on the Ishrat encounter. Sources have told NDTV that a new draft of the affidavit is being considered by the Attorney General and the Home Ministry. The original affidavit said that Ishrat Jehan had links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a fact used by the BJP to defend the killing of Ishrat and her companions in Ahemdabad.
A recent enquiry, headed by Judge SP Tamang, concluded that Ishrat had been killed by the police in cold blood; officers involved in the encounter wanted to impress chief minister Narendra Modi. The report - known as the Tamang report - said that Ishrat and her boyfriend, Javed were kidnapped from Mumbra outside Mumbai, and were taken to a farmhouse near Ahemdabad. They were kept there along with 2 young Muslim men. All 4 were then killed and placed in a car on a highway. Guns were placed to make it seem like Ishrat and the others were involved in a shootout with the police.
Stung by these findings, the Gujarat government has rejected the Tamang report; the BJP says there is no doubt that Ishrat and the others were planning to assassinate Narendra Modi. Evidence of this, it said, lies in the fact that the central government had alerted Gujarat to the possibility of Ishrat acting as a terrorist. In an affidavit filed in the Gujarat High Court by the Home Ministry, the central government stated that Ishrat and her boyfriend often travelled together as a couple, and that the boyfriend seemed to have links with the LeT.
The Modi government claims this affidavit is damning evidence of Ishrat's real identity. The central government has been arguing that it only relayed intelligence reports. Now, the government is revising that affidavit. It will argue that the intelligence inputs it received and passed on were not conclusive and need further investigation. It will also ask the court to decide whether Ishrat's death should be investigated by the CBI.
