Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: July 5, 2013
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2013/07/05/caged-parrot-cbi-employes-special-parameters-to-investigate-case-99506.html
Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan and her three male companions were abducted by the Gujarat Police at different times, held at different locations, and then brought together for elimination by staged encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004 – at least according to the version presented by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in its charge sheet filed in the Court of Ahmedabad’s Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate HS Khutwad on July 3, 2013 says.
This means that just two years after the horrendous post-Godhra riots of 2002 that continue to haunt the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his Minister of State Amit Shah, undaunted by the magnitude of the forces they were — and continue to be — up against, permitted an extra-judicial State to flourish under their watch and assassinate Muslim terrorists.
This brings to mind the truly sensational extra-judicial killing of Indira Gandhi assassins Beant Singh and Satwant Singh (who managed to survive and was hanged later) at the hands of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). This was a gruesome, cold-blooded murder, which took place many hours after the assassination of the then Prime Minister, after the assailants had surrendered and were taken into custody, alive and uninjured. Instead of booking cases against them and interrogating them about the conspiracy behind the assassination, a deliberate attempt was made to scuttle a meaningful investigation by silencing the two hitmen.
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Such an order could only have come from someone very powerful in the establishment, and the motive was obvious. It was also very successful. Beant Singh, the man who knew much about the conspiracy – including who brought Sikh officers back into the inner security ring around the Prime Minister – was killed, and though Satwant Singh survived, he was unable to throw any light on the conspiracy and conspirators.
Under the Indian Penal Code, a murder is never time-barred.
Yet, to this day, there has been no investigation of any kind into the circumstances in which ITBP personnel shot down unarmed men in their custody. No case was registered and the actual shooters were never even identified.
Instead, the nation was asked to brush the incident aside as just one of those things that happen when a ‘big tree’ falls… The foot soldiers of the human rights industry who raised a furore over the selective killing of Sikh civilians in Delhi and other cities by goons associated with the ruling party, allowed this incident to pass. Since, they included eminent jurists close to the ruling party, they must even now be compelled to answer why they deliberately opted for silence in a murder that literally shut down the investigation into the conspiracy behind the crime. Who was served by this complicity?
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If India as a nation disapproves of extra-judicial killings of real or alleged terrorists of any faith or gender, it cannot apply different yardsticks in different cases. The Akal Takht and the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, who constantly irritate the nation with their espousal of Sant Bhindranwale and refusal to distance themselves from the monstrosity of the Khalistan Movement, must ask for the filing of cases and investigation of the murder of Beant Singh and attempted murder of Satwant Singh.
The family members of both men must be helped to claim compensation from the Centre for these extra-judicial killings. Only when this case is satisfactorily disposed off can India claim to have stood for justice and fair play. This must be the yardstick by which the nation settles all extra-judicial killings by the State. The Supreme Court could be asked to fix the quantum of compensation in such cases, for uniformity, so that there is no arbitrariness in the matter.
Coming back to Ishrat Jahan and her companions, the CBI would have us believe that the regime presided over by a ‘grey beard’ managed to rope in a Central intelligence officer to participate in this ‘joint operation’. If a cornered regime with its back to the wall could forge such a formidable alliance, imagine what it could do had it decided to target someone in New Delhi. Prima facie, it appears that a ‘caged parrot’ has been tasked to downsize Narendra Modi in a manner that puts him out of the Prime Ministerial race.
In one sense, it is premature to go into the merits of the charge sheet against eight police officers, as the case will now be fought in Court, where evidence offered in support of these contentions will be rigorously scrutinised. Still, some points deserve mention.
The charge sheet claims that Ishrat was used as a cover or shield by her three companions who were terrorists. It is inconceivable that Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists (smuggler Javed Sheikh and Pakistanis Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar) would allow a girl not part of their cell to move around with them and telephone her mother whenever she pleased! Terrorist cells are highly secretive; in large organisations all recruits do not even know each other. We also do not know more about their Pakistani handler, Muzammil.
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Further, in 2010, convicted terrorist David Headley told the FBI and also the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that Ishrat was a terrorist; doubtless, the Government will have to explain in Court why it discarded this testimony. The CBI will also have to explain why, in 2004, a Lahore-based publication affiliated with the LeT claimed that Ishrat and her companions were ‘martyrs’, and why it took the three years for the Jamaat-ud-Dawa to ‘realise’ this was an error!
The most serious fallout of this case of the attempt to arraign senior officer Rajendra Kumar, then the Gujarat station chief of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), who reportedly informed his superiors of the LeT plot to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi, allegedly to take revenge for the Gujarat riots of 2002. Present indications suggest that he may be charged after retiring at the end of July.
This will have institutional repercussions within the entire intelligence community at a time when the nation is facing multiple threats from jihadis, Maoists, and even foreign intelligence agencies snooping on the top levels of our Government. Nor can we disregard IB chief Asif Ibrahim’s reported statement to the Prime Minister and Home Minister that the Bureau has enough evidence to prove that Ishrat was part of a LeT module which planned to kill Narendra Modi and Lal Krishna Advani.
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It bears recalling that the Thakkar Commission which subsequently investigated the Indira Gandhi assassination pointed the ‘needle of suspicion’ at her personal secretary RK Dhawan. A little down the line, however, when an inept Rajiv Gandhi found he needed the services of Dhawan to cope with the hostility of President Giani Zail Singh, the Government had to strain considerable muscle and sinew to debunk Thakkar and rehabilitate Dhawan’s honour and reputation.
Seen in this light, we may not have heard the last word on the mystery of Ishrat Jahan and co.
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