IN THIS ISSUE

NEWS HEADLINES

OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

NEWS HEADLINES

COPS FAKED ISHRAT KILLING FOR REWARDS: PROBE REPORT (SEP 8, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

Less than a month after the Gujarat High Court formed a three-member committee under an Additional Director General of Police to probe the 2004 killing of Ishrat Jahan and three others in an encounter by Gujarat police, a magisterial report into the incident has claimed that the four were gunned down in cold blood, allegedly by police officers eager to get promotions and the appreciation of Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The 240-page report by metropolitan magistrate S P Tamang was released to the media today by advocate Mukul Sinha who is appearing on behalf of Ishrat’s mother Shamima in the Gujarat High Court. It was on Shamima’s petition that Justice Kalpesh Jhaveri on August 13 formed a committee under ADGP Pramod Kumar and sought a report on or before November 30.

Ishrat Jahan, from Mumbra near Mumbai, was killed in an encounter along with three others in June 2004. The then DCP D G Vanzara, who later became a prime accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, had claimed that all four had links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba and were on a mission to kill Chief Minister Modi. A month after the encounter, a report published in Lahore-based Ghazwa Times, the Lashkar mouthpiece, had described Ishrat as a "a woman activist of LeT". The probe into the killings was started by the sub-divisional magistrate of Ahmedabad in 2004 but amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code saw the chief metropolitan magistrate handing it to Tamang since the killings took place in an area under his court’s jurisdiction.

Tamang’s inquiry report has called the encounter a fake. Apart from Ishrat, those killed near the Kotarpur waterworks were Javed alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Akbar Ali Rana alias Salim alias Chandu alias Rajkumar and Abdul Gani alias Jishant Johar alias Janbaaz s/o Kalu. The police had claimed the two men with Ishrat and Javed were Pakistanis. The probe report states that the four were kidnapped from Mumbai on June 12, 2004 and killed on the night of June 14 by the police. Mentioning names of all the officers involved, Tamang said they all conspired to get promotions and appreciation. He said there were no Pakistanis among the four.

According to the report, Javed was killed by the DCB on June 14 between 8.30 pm and 9 pm while the other three were killed the same day between 11 pm and 12 midnight. The report said police officials had either towed or driven the car of the victims to the ‘encounter’ spot. Mukul Sinha said they would demand immediate arrest of all police officers named in the report – then Police Commissioner K R Kaushik, DCB Joint Commissioner of Police P P Pandey, then DCP D G Vanzara, ACP Narendra Amin, ACP G L Singhal and other junior DCB officials.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/514340/

FAMILIES OF OTHER VICTIMS SPEAK UP, DEMAND JUDICIAL INQUIRY (SEP 10, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

Amid the din created by Judicial Magistrate S P Tamang’s report holding 21 police personnel responsible for the extra-judicial killing of Ishrat Jahan and three others, relatives of two others – Mahendra Jadav and Jaffer Qasim – came here from Mumbai on Wednesday and demanded a judicial inquiry into their killing by the Gujarat Police. Sumitra Jadhav, Mahendra’s mother and Mariam, widow of Jaffer, both residents of Mumbai, have already moved the Supreme Court through Mumbai-based NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), with the same request. The two have also asked the apex court for direct action, including initiation of criminal proceedings against officers of the state for unconstitutional act and ask the state to pay compensation for what they say were extra judicial killings. They also demanded that the Gujarat Police personnel, some of whom are involved in illegal action, should not be involved in any inquiry ordered by the apex court.

Speaking to mediapersons in the presence of Teesta Setalvad of CJP and former Director General of Police R B Sreekumar, they said Mahendra and Jaffer were brutally murdered by the state police just to promote the image of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and get some personal benefits for themselves. The duo added they will not accept a probe by the state police, as they themselves were the killers and a probe by them would not be fair. Denying that Mahendra had any links with terrorists or underworld, Sumitra said her son had come to Gujarat in search of a job offered to him through one Fatima in Mumbai. She said her son was held by the crime branch sleuths at Ahmedabad railway station, was kept in custody for three days and then shot dead on June 22, 2004, near Panchkuwa in the Kalupur area.