Ishrat Jahan encounter: CBI to file chargesheet today

Two slain associates of Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan had links with Kashmir secessionist groups, said the CBI, contradicting the version put out by the Gujarat police. "The chargesheet will be filed (before a special CBI court) on Wednesday in Ahmedabad. It will primarily deal with the encounter and those who have executed it," an official who is part of the investigating team said, adding "IPS officials DG Vanzara, GL Singhal and PP Pande, who is absconding, will be charged for kidnapping, illegal confinement, murder and destruction of evidence in the case involving the murders of four persons".

Ishrat and her three associates were gunned down on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in June 2004 by the Gujarat police, which said they were Lashkar-e-Taiba members on a mission to kill chief minister Narendra Modi. "The probe has revealed that two of the four - Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar - were associated with secessionists groups in Kashmir." The agency has also established there was some connection between Javed Sheikh, another associate, and Rana. "Javed Sheikh was a petty criminal involved in smuggling and counterfeit currency." Ishrat used to work with Javed and had travelled with him to Uttar Pradesh.

A status report on the case will be placed before the Gujarat high court on July 4. The agency may not implicate Intelligence Bureau (IB) special director Rajinder Kumar in the first chargesheet but is likely to throw some light on his role in organising the prior custody of the deceased and also sending a false intelligence alert meant to facilitate the staged killings. However, the probe has indicated that an IB informer had tracked their movements before the killing. "The IB was getting information on them through one of its informers before the alleged encounter took place," a CBI source said.