At a time when elections are hovering around, a Special CBI court issued notices to Amit Shah, known as the close aide of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.
In the show-cause notice to Shah, who is also the BJP in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, the CBI court has asked that why he should not be made an accused in the encounter case. Notices have also been issued to the former Ahmedabad Police Commissioner KR Kaushik and the CBI. The notices are returnable on March 26.
The notices came following an application filed by Gopinath Pillai, father of Javed Pillai, who was among the four victims, killed in an ‘orchestrated’ encounter. Pillai in his application demanded to include Shah, who was Minister of State for Home in Modi government and Kaushik then Ahmedabad police commissioner when the encounter took place, as accused in the case.
On June 15, 2004, in an encounter Gujarat cops killed Mumbra college student Ishrat Jahan Raza and three others - Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar.
Nine years after the encounter, the CBI filed its first charge sheet on July 3, 2013.
The second charge sheet was filed in which seven top cops of Gujarat were charged with murder, conspiracy and destruction of evidence as well as illegal confinement.