Accused by the BJP of acting in a partisan manner in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, the CBI has sought legal opinion to arrest the Special Director in the Intelligence Bureau (IB) Rajendra Kumar. As the then Joint Director of Intelligence Bureau, Gujarat unit in 2004, Kumar had generated the alert on the threat posed by lashkar-e-Tayyaba operatives to top BJP leaders in the aftermath of the Godhra riots.
Ishrat and her associates were killed near Gandhinagar on June 15, 2004 and the CBI is probing the alleged fake encounter at the behest of the Gujarat High Court.
Kumar was posted as the Joint Director of the IB's Gujarat unit between 2002 and 2006. He was summoned to the CBI headquarters on May 31 and was questioned by the agency. The CBI sleuths, however, could not get any evidence against him.
According to CBI sources, Kumar's arrest was necessitated to subject him to custodial interrogation to gather evidence in the case. The Gandhinagar unit of the CBI had sought permission from the agency's headquarters to arrest the senior IPS officer.
The sources said once an affirmative opinion from the CBI's Directorate of Prosecution is received, the headquarters will give a go ahead to its Gandhinagar unit to arrest the senior IB official.
The CBI suspects that the IB input on threat to top BJP leaders from leT operatives Ishrat Jahan, her boyfriend Javed Pillai, Jeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali was fake and Kumar could have complicity in the conspiracy.
The agency, however, does not have any credible evidence to back its suspicion against the officer. According to Intelligence reports, Ishrat and her associates were leT cadres with a terrorist background.
The agency suspects that Ishrat and her associates were in illegal custody of the Crime Branch before being gunned down in the alleged stage-managed encounter following a trigger from the IB. The encounter was led by the then DIG of Crime Branch DG Vanzara, who was heading the team of the Crime Branch, Ahmedabad. At present, Vanzara is undergoing judicial custody.
The Opposition BJP has cried foul over the CBI move to question a senior IB official as it could expose the style of functioning of a secretive agency and demoralise its sources.
Opposition parties, including the BJP have time and again alleged that the UPA Government has been misusing the investigating agencies to coerce political opponents.
Incidentally, the CBI is yet to initiate any action against its officials who had chargesheeted ten Muslims in the Malegaon blasts case. The NIA recently chargesheeted four Hindus for the same blasts without any credible evidence. The Anti-Terrorist Squad, Mumbai had also chargesheeted the Muslims who are now out on bail.