leaders of BJP and JD(U) have found another opportunity to trade charges against each other — this time on the alleged fake encounter of Patna-born Ishrat Jahan.
Ishrat was born in Patna in 1985 when their parents used to live in the city. She also studied in Patna for a few years when her family moved to Mumbai in the quest of a better life 20 years ago.
Participating in the fresh round of debate, JD(U) MP Ali Anwar asked the BJP to clarify its position on the alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and also appealed her all Bihar-based relatives to shed their fears and demand justice for her when the needle of suspicion is pointed to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his close associate Amit Shah
The Gujarat Police had gunned down Ishrat in an alleged fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2004.
Anwar told The Pioneer that relatives of Ishrat from Bihar never disclosed that she was related to them out of fear despite her death in an alleged fake encounter nearly nine years ago.
Her Bihar-based relatives did not want to associate themselves with her in any manner once she was branded a terrorist and subsequently gunned down in Gujarat.
But since now when it is publicly known that Ishrat was born in Patna and some of her relatives are based in Bihar, they should come out openly to demand justice for her, he added.
“We also take pride in Isharat Jahan’s mother, Shamima Quasar who is fighting the case with all her courage and determination,” the JD(U) MP remarked.
Ishrat had spent her initial years at her maternal grandfather’s home at Shahganj area of Sultanganj in Patna. She was born in Khagaul area of Patna in 1985 while one of her maternal uncles, M Rahman still works as a lab assistant in the Patna University.
Ishrat’s grandfather Wali Muhammad was a resident of Khagaul area while her father, Muhammad Shamim used to work as a contractor in Patna. Her mother is a native of Jamalpur in Munger district.
Meanwhile, Deputy leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ravi Shankar Prasad told mediapersons in Patna that a terrorist has no religion or caste and a terrorist should be treated only as a terrorist.
“Why we should try to rake up the issue on the consideration that roots of Ishrat Jahan’s family have been traced to Patna,” he commented.
He said that the police encounter took place on the basis of IB inputs and hence there is no reason why one should attach some extraneous motive to the encounter.
Now, the Congress is trying to influence the CBI probe into the police encounter and drag the name of Narendra Modi into the entire episode with a political motive.
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh’s “attack” on a senior IB officer in Ishrat Jahan’s police encounter poses threat to the internal security of the country itself as it will have a demoralising effect on the entire IB set-up, the BJP leader added.
“We should never attempt to undermine the authority of IB with a purpose to achieve some political goal,” he added.