Ishrat case: Chidambaram denies he signed affidavits

Accusses ruling party of trying to divert attention from the real issue by raising the affidavit controversy

Under fire from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the Ishrat Jahan case, former union home minister P Chidambaram on Monday said the ruling party was "only trying to divert attention from the real issue by raising the affidavit controversy".

He also said the affidavits were not signed by him but the then under secretary. "The affidavit controversy is only to divert attention from the real issue in the Ishrat Jahan case. Real issue is whether there was a fake encounter and whether four people already in custody were killed in that fake encounter," Chidambaram tweeted.

"Coming to the affidavits, the home minister does not sign affidavits. It is signed by an undersecretary," he added.

He also said that he had no recollection of seeing the first affidavit.

"Although I have no recollection of seeing the first affidavit, let us presume that I did. Then came the report of Magistrate SP Tamang," he wrote.

"This report caused an uproar and there was demand mainly from Gujarat that government of India should clarify or dispel misinterpretation being placed on the first affidavit. This is why a second, short affidavit was filed," he added.

Mumbai college girl Ishrat Jahan and her three alleged associates were killed by Gujarat Police in an allegedly staged shootout near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

In February this year, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Headley told a Mumbai court that Ishrat Jahan was a member of the Pakistan-based terror group.

Meanwhile the government on Monday stepped up its attack on the Congress in the high-profile Ishrat Jahan case and accused Chidambaram of "trying to divert attention from a serious issue like national security and terrorism".

"A compromised national security is too serious an issue. It cannot be diverted," Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju told reporters here. The minister's reaction came within hours of Chidambaram's tweets.

Rijiju said the senior Congress leader was only making a ‘delirious attempt’ through such statements to divert attention and to defend himself as an undersecretary or a designated official signs an affidavit "only after the minister approves".

Earlier in the day, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kirit Somaiya raised the issue in the Lok Sabha and accused the then Congress government at the Centre of playing with national security in its attempt to project Ishrat a martyr.-IANS