CBI gets closer to Modi, may quiz Shah next week
NEW DELHI: The CBI, probing the June 2004 fake encounter deaths of Mumbai college student Ishrat Jahan and three other terror suspects in Ahmedabad, is likely to examine the then state home minister Amit Shah to verify if he had known about the conspiracy.
The agency will take Shah’s version for the first time as part of the probe, after filing its charge sheet in the case early next week, according to a CBI source. “There is a suspicion that a case accused was in touch with Shah before and after the incident telephonically, the records of which we are verifying. We may examine him after filing our charge sheet, which will be followed by a supplementary charge sheet,” he said.
The agency may charge sheet Intelligence Bureau’s special director Rajinder Kumar, a 1979 batch Indian Police Service officer who was posted in Gujarat from 2001 to 2005, without seek- ing a prosecution sanction from the home ministry.
“We don’t need any prosecution sanction to charge sheet the IB officer since sanction under section 197 of the CrPC is mandatory only if the crime is committed as part of the government servant’s official duties. This was a fake encounter, orchestrating it wasn’t part of his official duty,” he said.
“No prosecution sanction was required to charge sheet senior police officers accused in fake encounter probes in Punjab,” said the source.
A home ministry source, however, said that CBI’s evidence only indicated that Kumar was in the loop, not conspired to murder.