Modi, Shah ordered Ishrat encounter, claims Cong

The Congress on Sunday said the Gujarat Police killed Ishrat Jahan in a staged shootout in 2004 on the orders of the then chief minister Narendra Modi and BJP leader Amit Shah. The opposition party also said that accusations against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the case were "preposterous and diversionary tactics", adding that the central government was obstructing trial in the case to protect those accused in the staged gun battle. "The fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others was ordered by the then chief minister and his then minister of state for home Amit Shah," the Congress said in a statement here.

Senior party leaders Kapil Sibal told reporters: "The plain and simple intrigue of the central government is to ensure that the most important persons of the BJP/government are not brought to trial." "A metropolitan court in Ahmedabad, Special Investigation Team formed by the Gujarat High Court and a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry have affirmed their involvement in this case," Sibal said asserting that all three dubbed the gun battle as fake.

"It is, therefore, obvious that the present tsunami of misinformation is to save the then chief minister (Modi) and the then MoS (Shah) from having to appear before the sessions court as an accused," the Congress leader added. "The CBI filed a charge sheet in 2013 and called it a fake encounter. We are in 2016 and the case hasn't moved forward at all," Sibal said, asking "why is this case not proceeding?"

Another senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi asserted: "If this trial goes to court, Modi and Shah may be summoned as accused. This entire campaign of misinformation is based on the version of (Pakistan-American Lashkar-eTaiba operative David Coleman) Headley who has become a paragon of virtue for the BJP."