The Ishrat Jahan encounter case refers to the encounter killing of four people claimed to be Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives by the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch in 2004. The victims included Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year old college girl from Mumbai, and three men: Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Gulam Sheikh), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar. Multiple judicial inquiries by Indian authorities, in 2009 and 2011, concluded that the encounter was fake, and the victims were killed in police custody.^[1]

The encounter was carried out by a team led by DIG D.G. Vanjara, who was later jailed for his involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter.^[2] The police alleged that Ishrat and her associates were LeT operatives involved in a plot to assassinate the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. Later, an investigation was launched into the allegations that Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter. In 2004, a Lahore-based publication affiliated with LeT claimed that Ishrat and her companions were operatives,^[3] but in 2007, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of the LeT retracted the statement as a "journalistic mistake", offering apology to Ishrat's family.^[4] After a long investigation, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged.^[5] The decision was challenged by the Gujarat State government, and taken to the High Court. In 2010, some media outlets reported that the convicted terrorist David Headley had implicated Ishrat in terrorist activities in a statement given to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).^[6] However, the NIA called these reports as "baseless".^[7] After further investigation, in 2011, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) told the Gujarat High Court that the encounter was not genuine, and the victims were killed prior to the date of the staged encounter.^[8]

The victims[link]

Ishrat Jahan Shamim Raza

Ishrat Jahan (1985 – 15 June 2004) was a second year Bachelor of Science student at Mumbai's Guru Nanak Khalsa College.^[9] She was the second of 7 siblings. Her lower middle class family, hailing from Bihar, lived in the Rashid compound in the Muslim-dominated area of Mumbra in Thane district in Mumbai. Having lost her father Shamim two years before her own death, Ishrat taught tuition and did embroidery work to support her family. Ishrat’s father Mohammad Shamim Raza was the proprietor of a Mumbai-based construction company called Asian Constructions while mother Shamima worked for a long time at a medicine packaging company in Vashi.^[10]

Ishrat had been hired by Javed Sheikh (also killed in the "encounter") to do some accounts-related work in his (unlocated) office at Pune for which he used to pay decent money. Whenever Ishrat came back to her home in Mumbai, she would hand over some money to her mother and tell her that the family's problems will be over once she finished her studies and got a permanent job.

Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Gulam Sheikh)

Pranesh Pillai was the son of Gopinatha Pillai, a native of Noornad in Kerala. He was married to Sajida, and had three children, including a daughter.^[11]

Pranesh had migrated to Mumbai in search of a job. Before his death, he had been booked for four assault cases in Mumbai and Pune, and had also been charged with involvement in a fake currency racket.^[12] In the mid-1990s, he converted to Islam and changed his name to Javed Sheikh to marry a Muslim woman called Sajida. Gujarat Police recovered two passports from Javed: one obtained using his original name Pranesh and the second one in his new name.^[12]

Ishrat's family first time met Javed Sheikh just two months before her death.^[10] He had taken Ishrat to Nasik, Bangalore and Lucknow, where he is believed to have met Amjad.^[12]

Amjad Ali Rana

Amjad Ali Rana, also known as Akbar or Salim, was allged to be a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist from Haveli Diwan, Pakistan. He was reportedly found dead with an AK-56 rifle near his body. Amjad is believed to have met Javed several times in Oman, and also Javed and Ishrat in Ibrahimpur once.^[12] Amjad introduced Ishrat and Javed to Zeeshan, the fourth victim.

Zeeshan Johar

Zeeshan (alias Jisan Johar alias Abdul Ghani Son of Kalu alias Janbaaz), along with Amjad, is said to have been caught in a trespassing case in Srinagar in 2003.^[12] Nobody claimed the bodies of Amjad and Zeeshan after the encounter.^[12] An identity card with a Pakistan address was reportedly recovered from Zeeshan's dead body. However, a later report by the metropolitan magistrate SP Tamang stated that identity cards were forged by the police and the two men were Indian citizens, although it did not give any evidence on this.^[13]

The alleged encounter[link]

Ishrat had left her house on 12 June 2004, three days before she was killed. Ishrat made her last call to her home at Mumbra on 11 June 2004, three days before her death and spoke with her mother Shamima. According to her mother, Ishrat called her from a public phone booth outside a Nashik bus stop, and told her that "Uncle (Javed Sheikh hasn’t come yet." A few minutes later, Ishrat made a second call and told her mother in a terrified voice that Javed had come but with some "strange men".^[10]

On 15 June 2004, the Gujarat police stated that Ishrat, along with three other people, had been gunned down near Ahmedabad by a police team belonging to the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of the Ahmedabad City Police.^[14][15] The four were allegedly killed after the police chased their blue Tata Indica car.

The police claimed that all four were connected with the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and were in Gujarat to assassinate Narendra Modi, in order to avenge the communal riots of 2002 which had led to the deaths of numerous Muslims.^[15] The police team was led by then Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay G. Vanzara, who was later jailed for involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter killing.^[16][17]

Allegations of fake encounter[link]

A probe into the encounter was ordered after Ishrat's family insisted that she was innocent, and the Mumbai police said she had no criminal background, and their investigation did not find anything that could implicate her.^[14] A number of politicians and the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission demanded an inquiry.^[16] Ishrat's funeral procession was attended by over 10,000 people in Mumbra, and the Samajwadi Party state President Abu Azmi said that he would demand a CBI probe into the killings.^[18]

In 2004, a news report published in Lahore-based Ghazwa Times (considered to be a mouthpiece of the LeT) claimed that Ishrat was its operative, and was with her "husband" at the time of her death.^[3] Ghazwa claimed on its website that "veil of Ishrat Jahan, a woman LeT operative, was removed by Gujarat police and her body kept with other mujahideens".^[19] However, in May 2007, Jamaat ut Dawa, the political wing of the LeT retracted the earlier statement and offered an apology to Ishrat's family. It said that the earlier news report was based on Indian newspaper reports, and was a "journalistic mistake".^[4]

The Gujarat government had faced strong criticism by human rights groups for anti-Muslim human rights violations, following the communal riots of 2002.^[14] During this period, there had been several police encounter deaths in the Gujarat, three of which have been attributed to attempts to kill Narendra Modi in retaliation for the alleged involvement of the state machinery in the riots. Some human rights activists have alleged that many of these alleged encounters actually happen in police custody.^[20] They claimed that there is a pattern that many of these encounters followed: they always took place in the wee hours of the morning in a deserted area, with no witnesses; a vigorous exchange of fire resulted in the deaths of all the terrorists, while the police received no injuries; and the diary of the accused was often recovered, and contained incriminating evidence.^[21] In 2007, several of the policemen held responsible for the death of Ishrat faced trial in connection with the 2005 fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife. The police officer D.G. Vanzara, who led the encounter was later jailed for his involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter. This resulted in an investigation into the encounter involving Ishrat.

In Ishrat's case, the Gujarat police claimed to have received information on the assassination plot from the Mumbai police. The Mumbai police however denied there was any such information.^[21] According to People's Union for Civil Liberties, the Gujarat police did not follow normal procedures in their investigations. No FIR was lodged with the local area police station where the encounter occurred,no charge sheet, no inquest report, and no witness statement.^[21] No bullet marks or damage was observed on the road or surrounding area.^[21]

S P Tamang report[link]

In 2009, a judicial probe into the incident found the four victims were killed in police custody. The report by the Metropolitan Magistrate S P Tamang submitted in the metropolitan court Ahmedabad on 7 September 2009 said the four persons were killed in police custody.^[14][22] It implicated a number of top police officials for the deaths, which were allegedly staged in order to win promotions and rewards.^[14]

The Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the killing of Ishrat Jehan was a fake encounter,^[5] and Ishrat's family stated that she was not connected with LeT at all. A petition led the high court to constitute a police team, headed by Additional Director General of Police Pramod Kumar to look into the incident.^[23]

In the 243-page report, Tamang named the "encounter specialist" of the Gujarat police, the then head of the DCB, D.G. Vanzara, among others, as the accused in the "cold-blooded murder" of Ishrat and three others.^[15][17]

Tamang's report said the Crime Branch police kidnapped Ishrat and the others from Mumbai on 12 June 2004 and brought them to Ahmedabad. The four were killed on the night of June 14 in police custody, but the police claimed that an "encounter" took place the next morning on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Rigor mortis had set in between 11 p.m. and midnight the previous night, indicating that the police had later shot bullets into Ishrat's body to substantiate the encounter theory.^[15]

Tamang said there was no evidence to link the victims with the LeT. There was also nothing to indicate that they had come to Gujarat to kill Modi.^[15] The report said explosives, rifles and other weapons allegedly found in the car, and the weapons found on their person were all planted by the police.^[15]

Claiming that the police officers were motivated by their personal interests in getting promotions and appreciation from the Chief Minister, Tamang included a list of top police officers, whom he held responsible. It includes Vanzara and his then deputy Narendra K. Amin, both of whom were already arrested in the Sohrabuddin encounter killing case. The list also included K.R. Kaushik, who was then the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner, P.P. Pandey, who was then the chief of the Crime Branch, and another alleged encounter specialist Tarun Barot.^[15]

The Gujarat High Court stayed the Tamang report on 9 September 2009 but said that Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Court could use the report.

Further investigation[link]

The Gujarat State Government challenged the report of the metropolitan magistrate, saying that the policemen accused of fake encounter were not given an opportunity to present their side of the arguments. The case was thus taken to the Gujarat High Court. The Gujarat high court stated that Ishrat Jahan staged shootout case was of national importance, and ordered the police witnesses to be placed where they would not be working as subordinates to officials accused in the case.

In July 2010, some media outlets reported that the American terrorist of Pakistani descent David Headley had named Ishrat as a member of Lashkar.^[24] However, in a letter to the Gujarat High Court, the NIA clarified that these media reports were false and David Headly did not speak about Ishrat Jahan.^[7]

A Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by Karnail Singh, was set up to probe the case further. The SIT sent four teams to Srinagar, Delhi, Lucknow and Nashik to probe Ishrat's alleged terrorist links.^[25] The team's forensic and ballistic experts, reconstructed the events of the encounter.^[26]

On 21 November 2011, the SIT told the Gujarat High Court that the Ishrat Jahan encounter was not genuine. After the SIT filed its report, the High Court ordered that a complaint under Indian Penal Code Section 302 (murder) has to be filed against those involved in the fake encounter.^[8]

References[link]