Sriram Ananth
On June 15th 2004, a 19-year old Mumbai student, Ishrat Jahan, was killed in an “encounter” by the Gujarat police along with three others, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The Gujarat state government and police claimed that she was part of a team of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operatives who were planning to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders for their role in the state-led, anti-Muslim violence of 2002. According to the FIR filed by the police after the killings, they had received intelligence that terrorists were planning to come by car from Mumbai directly to Gandhinagar to conduct their assassinations and were killed in an alleged gun-battle with the police near Ahmedabad.
The version of the police had numerous loopholes to begin with as argued in the court by advocate Mukul Sinha, First, it is curious that the Gujarat police upon receiving this supposed tip-off, didn’t inform Maharashtra police to intercept the car and arrest those inside it or even why they didn’t intercept the car right at the border of the state, instead waiting for them to come all the way to Ahmedabad. Second, in the encounter the police said that one of the occupants took position with an AK-47 and started firing, yet there were no injuries to police nor signs of any gun-battle, while all four occupants were killed (this, of course is the standard line parroted in Indian police reports of staged encounter-killings). In the present case, the complainant is from the crime branch, the person who recorded the statement is also from the crime branch, the encounter was carried out by the crime branch and the investigation was also carried out by the crime branch. Therefore, one cannot expect fair investigation from the same agency
Finally, the so-called encounter was led by none other than the notorious “encounter specialist” and a trigger-happy police officer of Modi, DG Vanzara. Vanzara and his team who are now in Sabarmati prison charged for the killings of Saurabuddin Sheikh and Kauser Bi. Their involvement in the encounter of Tulsi prajapati (another witness in the same case) is being investigated under the order of Supreme Court. State government has agreed to deposit Rs. ten lakhs as compensation in Supreme Court.
Ishrat might well have been just another statistic in the long litany of human rights violations perpetrated upon the people by the state of Gujarat.
In a brave stand taken by Ishrat’s mother, Shamima Kausar filed a petition for a CBI probes into the killings. She disputed the investigation led by the local crime branch, saying it was a fabricated case, that her daughter was not involved in any terrorist organization, and demanded a fair probe into the killings. Waging a legal battle with the support of Jan Sangarsh Manch’s lawyer and activist, Mukul Sinha, Shamima has now dealt a small, symbolic blow to Modi’s fascist state with the Gujarat High Court setting up a Special Investigation Team to probe the incident. This was announced by Justice KS Zhaveri in early August, with the court declining the request for a CBI probe but set up a three-member team comprising senior police officers of the state to investigate the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. The team, consisting of additional DGP Pramod Kumar(convener), IG Mohan Jha and DIG JK Bhatt, has been asked to submit its report within three months.
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