New Delhi: The Ishrat Jahan encounter of 2004 is back in the spotlight with the Delhi Police registering an FIR for "criminal breach of trust" over the documents that had gone missing in the case from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The action came on a complaint filed by VK Upadhyay, Under Secretary in the MHA, at the Parliament Street Police Station. The complaint says that the ministry realized files were missing when it decided to looked into the case after the Ishrat Jahan incident was "widely discussed" in the media in March 2016.
According to the FIR, a copy of which is with CNN-News18, the missing documents include two office copies of the letter and an enclosure sent by the then Home Secretary on September 18, 2009; the draft affidavit as amended by the then Home Minister on September 24, 2009; and office copy of the further affidavit filed in the Gujarat High court September 29, 2009.
According to Upadhyay's complaint, when these documents were found missing, MHA ordered an internal inquiry on March 14, 2016. The then Additional Secretary (Foreigners) was appointed as the inquiry officer to inquire into the matter who submitted his report on June 15, 2016. The report said it needs to be probed as to "how, why and under what circumstances" these papers went "missing" or “were removed from the file".
Ishrat Jahan, 19, and three others were killed in an alleged fake encounter in Gujarat in June 2004 and the state police had alleged that the squad belonged to a Lashkar-e-Toiba team sent to assassinate the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The issue acquired a political hue after her mother Shamima Kausar approached Gujarat High Court seeking a CBI probe a few months after the encounter. After much legal wrangling, the case was transferred to CBI in 2011. The CBI chargesheets in the case mentioned senior Gujarat police officers as well as a few officials of the Intelligence Bureau.
The conduct of the then Additional Secretary (Foreigners) BK Prasad while inquiring into the "missing papers" had created a controversy after a newspaper claimed to have a recording of him tutoring another officer on how to depose during the probe.
Earlier, the case of the missing papers had set off a political row with the BJP accusing the previous UPA dispensation of changing original affidavits to dilute the terror angle.
Congress party has vehemently denied these allegations.
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