A Ministry of Home Affairs official — who deposed as a witness in the Ishrat Jehan encounter probe — told the Supreme Court on Friday that his life was under threat, claiming that he received an anonymous threat letter. The court decided to take up the matter on September 19.
The officer RVS Mani who is party in a petition filed by an accused Gujarat Police officer NK Amin had filed an affidavit on August 6 alleging that the CBI officers probing the case had tortured and harassed him in order to pressurize him into naming senior IB officer Rajinder Kumar as an accused in the case.
Mani who was posted as Under Secretary with the Internal Security Wing of Ministry of Home Affairs had told the Gujarat HC in August 2009 that Ishrat killing was part of an operation conducted on inputs received from Intelligence Bureau (IB) that Ishrat along with three others were lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists who entered Gujarat with the aim to target BJP leaders lK Advani and Narendra Modi.
Over a month later on September 29, 2009, he filed yet another affidavit in HC suggesting that Ishrat was not a terrorist. Both affidavits, according to him, were “duly approved” by then Home Minister P Chidambaram.