Justice will prevail, vows Ishrat's family

My sister is not a terrorist. The Gujarat police killed her in a fake encounter, said Mussarat Jahan, Ishrat Jahan's sister reacting to the Gujarat High Court order on Thursday, directing a probe into the alleged fake encounter in June 2004.

"My sister is not a terrorist. The Gujarat police killed her in a fake encounter," said Mussarat Jahan, Ishrat Jahan's sister reacting to the Gujarat High Court order on Thursday, directing a probe into the alleged fake encounter in June 2004.

Senior Gujarat IPS officer D G Vanjara, is in jail for staging the fake encounter of Soharabudin Shaikh, on November 26, 2005 in Gandhinagar.
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Dead: Ishrat Jahan was killed in an alleged fake encounter in 2004

Ishrat was the sole breadwinner in her family of seven and took tuitions and did odd jobs to help out. Despite financial problems, Ishrat's family made do. Until, she was tagged a terrorist.

Everything changed and the family struggling to survive, was dragged into penury.
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Vanjara who was then the additional commissioner of police (Crime) had claimed that Ishrat along with three others were allegedly on their way to Ahmedabad to kill CM Narendra Modi, when they were shot dead in an encounter.
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Added her mother Shamima, "We are confident that justice will prevail." Sr Advocate Vrinda Grover representing the family said, "We will point out the aspects that need investigation within two weeks to the committee appointed for the probe."

Court order

In a significant development, the Gujarat High Court on Friday directed the state government to submit a list of police officers of the rank of Additional Director Generals (ADGs) to explore the possibility of setting up a three-member committee for a fresh investigation into the killing of Ishrat Jahan.

A suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative, Ishrat was killed on the outskirts of the city on June 2004.

The court fixed August 12 for the final order after Public Prosecutor J M Panchal and Advocate General Kamal Trivedi submitted before the court that the state government will furnish a list of ADGs on August 12.

Justice K S Zhaveri issued the direction on a petition by Ishrat's mother Shameema Kausar who had submitted that her daughter was not linked to any terrorist organisation, and that it was a cold-blooded murder.

Through her advocate Mukul Sinha, she had asked for a fresh investigation by a team from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

She had said that she did not trust investigations by the Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB).

Investigations under the supervision of the then Deputy Superintendent of Police Parikshitaben Gurjar, however, concluded that it was not a fake encounter.

The four killed, along with Ishrat Jahan, were LeT operatives and two of them were from Pakistan, the investigations revealed.

Ishrat's husband Praneshkumar Pillai, who had converted to Islam for marrying Ishrat and had changed his name to Javed, was reported to have taken training in Pakistan.

According to the DCB, they were on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior BJP leaders to avenge the Gujarat riots.

The case was closed by filing a summary report before the Ahmedabad POTA court.

Ishrat, travelling with Javed and two others in an Indica car with a Maharashtra registration number, was gunned down at Kotarpur near Indira Bridge on the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar highway.

D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Narendra Amin were among the officers involved in the encounter.

The three are, at present, lodged in the Sabarmati Central Jail for their involvement in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter case and the subsequent murder of his wife, Kausarbi.