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Ishrat Encounter
Gujarat HC stays probe report

Ahmedabad, September 9
The Gujarat High Court today stayed Metropolitan Magistrate S P Tamang's report, which had said the police encounter killing Ishrat Jahan and three others was fake, and asked authorities of the High Court to look into the action of the Magistrate and take necessary action.

The Gujarat government had approached the High Court today demanding stay on the report.

Justice Kalpesh Javheri while ordering the stay said observations made in the report were beyond the jurisdiction of the judicial magistrate.

Justice Javheri also ordered appropriate authority of the High Court to look into the actions of Magistrate Tamang and take necessary action. The next hearing of the case is fixed on September 30.

However, the court has given liberty to Ishrat's mother to produce the report before the three-member committee constituted by the High Court last month to investigate the encounter. It further said the report can be considered as evidence by the committee.

The four, claimed to have been killed by the police in an encounter on the outskirts of the city on June 15, 2004 were - Ishrat, Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani. — PTI

Law Ministry removes official in Ishrat case
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 9
The Ishrat Jahan killing in an alleged fake encounter took a new turn with a senior official in the Law Ministry removed from his post in the wake of the controversy over the Centre’s affidavit in the Gujarat High Court while the Home Ministry stuck to its guns that the four were suspects.

Highly-placed sources in the Law Ministry said the Law Officer who had failed to bring the affidavit to the notice of the ministry had been removed.

The sources also said the Home Ministry did not not get the affidavit vetted by the Law Ministry before it was filed in the High Court in the case arising out of a petition filed by Ishrat's mother against the police.

“We stand by our affidavit is a fact available with the Home Ministry...…. we are not backtracking,” Home Secretary GK Pillai told reporters in response to a query here this evening. What we said in the affidavit was on the basis of intelligence reports (on Gujarat Cheif Minister Narendra Modi being targeted). The Home Ministry has nothing to do with the encounter.

If asked to prove the contents of the affidavit we would prove the same, Pillai said. The affidavit was filed on August 6 this year in the Gujarat High Court in response to a petition of the family of slain woman.

Even if they were terrorists, we cannot kill them in cold blood, he added. Pillai was replying to a question about the Home Ministry’s viewpoint following a magisterial inquiry in Gujarat that said the four were not terrorists and had been killed by police officials in cold blood.