The court handed over the charge sheet to five accused Gujarat cops in the Isharat Jahan encounter case on Monday. On July 3, CBI had filed summary of the charge sheet and later the investigating agency submitted to the Gujarat High Court.
Of the seven accused policemen, four — including Gl Singhal, Anaju Chaudhary, JG Parmar and Tarun Barot — appeared personally before the court to collect their copies of charge sheet. As NK Amin was ill, his advocate Ruturaj Nanavati collected the copy on his behalf. Another accused DG Vanzara had already received the copy, while senior IPS officer PP Pandey again didn’t appear before the court and remained absconding.
The much awaited chargesheet stated that eight Gujarat cops were accused in murder of 19-year-old Mumbai girl Isharat Jahan and three others. They were also charged with criminal conspiracy, illegal confinement and destruction of evidence under various sections of the Arms Act.
Interestingly, even on Monday, while submitting the chargesheet to the court, the CBI officials didn't speak on Isharat's terrorist link.
According to the CBI chargesheet, Ishrat Jahan and three others- Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were kept in illegal confinement, put on tranquiliser before they were killed in cold blood on June 15, 2004.
"DG Vanzara and other Gujarat police officers collected weapons from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) office and then planted them on Ishrat and others. On Vanzara's instructions, suspended IPS officer Gl Singhal went to the IB office on June 14, 2004 and collected a bag of weapons used in the encounter," said the chargesheet.
"IB officer Rajinder Kumar was heading state investigation bureau during the period when the encounter was carried out. Kumar and Pandey interacted with Ishrat and Javed at Khodiyar farm a few days before the encounter which conclusively proves that she was abducted by Gujarat Police officers NK Amin and Tarun Barot from Vasad toll booth," the CBI claimed in the chargesheet.