The Gujarat government today challenged the Ishrat Jahan report claiming that her encounter was not a fake.
The Gujarat governmentu00a0today challenged the Ishrat Jahan report claiming that her encounter was not a fake.
According to government, the susupects were not given fair chance to explain their stance.
ADVERTISEMENT
A judicial probe on Monday ruled that the 2004 assassination of college student Ishrat Jahan and three of her friends was a fake encounter by the Gujarat police.
Earlier, the Gujarat police claimed that the Ishrat along with three other male colleagues were members of the Lashkar who were on the mission to gun down Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
Metropolitan Magistrate SP Tamang's probe report submitted in the metropolitan court here on Monday said the four persons who were also suspected to be having links with Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) were killed in cold blood by the police. Magistrate Tamang in his report has claimed that the four were not linked to LeT.
Mumbai-based Ishrat (19) was killed in an encounter along with three other persons - Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani - by Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) officials near Ahmedabad on June 15 2004.
The then head of DCB DG Vanzara who is a prime accused in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case is behind bars at present had claimed that all the four had links to LeT and they were on a mission to kill Modi.
Last month the Gujarat High Court had formed a three-member committee headed by an officer of the rank of Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) to further investigate the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. This was done following a petition by Ishrat's mother Shamina, who alleged her daughter was killed in a fake encounter by Gujarat police.
After the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, this was the second case where an encounter involving Gujarat police during the Narendra Modi rule is being probed again.
Ishrat's family wants action against guilty Gujarat cops
"She was as patriotic and loved the country as much as you," said an impassioned Nusrat, the younger sister of Mumbai collegian Ishrat Jahan who was shot dead and branded a traitor by Gujarat police and whose killing has been proved to be a fake encounter.
A day after an Ahmedabad court ruled that the killing of Ishrat Jahan was a fake encounter, her family came out on Tuesday to demand the sternest punishment possible for the guilty policemen.
Her younger sister Nusrat said the family knew right from the beginning that her killing in June 2004 was a conspiracy.
"She was as patriotic and loved the country as much as you and we do. We are happy that finally the blot on our family has been erased and she has been proved innocent," the 22-year-old said.
Nusrat added that all those people who had viewed the family with suspicion had been given an appropriate answer by the Ahmedabad court verdict.
Her mother Shamima Jahan added tearfully that Ishrat's killing had branded their entire lives and affected the job and educational prospects of her six other children.
With the terrorist slur finally being removed, "our lives can come back on track," she said.
Ishrat, a resident of Mumbra suburb in Thane district, was a second year BSc student at Mumbai's Guru Nanak Khalsa College. Having lost her father two years before her death in 2002, she embroidered clothes and gave tuitions to help support her family of eight - including her mother and six brothers and sisters.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
