Ishrat Jahan encounter case: CBI evidence against Narendra Modi, Amit Shah 'hearsay'

By Aman Sharma & Rohini Singh, | 6 Jul, 2013, 10.41AM IST

NEW DELHI: CBI, which is investigating the conspiracy behind the unlawful killing of Ishrat Jahan and three others has so far not come upon direct evidence pointing to involvement of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi or his former home minister Amit Shah. Instead, the evidence against the political leaders is "hearsay" in nature and inadequate to arrive at any conclusion, a top CBI official told ETon Friday.

But CBI strongly suspects there was indeed political sanction for the fake encounter and is actively searching for evidence to prove this, the top official said. A statement made by a Gujarat Police Officer DH Goswami — part of the annexure in the chargesheet — referring to a go-ahead for the encounter from the political leadership in Gujarat was "not enough" as prosecutable evidence, the CBI officer said.

The statement by Goswami says police officer DG Vanzara, an accused in the case, told him that he had orders from 'political bosses' to kill the four persons in a fake encounter.

Vanzara's statement to Goswami came after the latter asked if the killings of Ishart and the others had political sanction. "This is secondhand information that Goswami had and it was moreover Vanzara's claim who is an accused himself — it is hearsay statement at best," the top CBI official said.

Goswami, who retired as a deputy SP, was named as an accused in the CBI FIR in this case but was not named as an accused in the chargesheet. CBI officials say that though his statement is attached in annexures of the chargesheet, it finds no mention in the chargesheet's main body, which focuses only on the actual encounter.

Hearsay evidence refers to evidence of those who are relating something they have heard from others. Top CBI officials in Delhi are also extremely annoyed about certain officers of the Gujarat Police, who were privy to the CBI probe, who are allegedly leaking the details of the CBI witnesses and their statements to the media. "We have to proceed on a firm footing while exposing the larger conspiracy behind the fake encounter.

Flimsy evidence to prove the conspiracy or a political hand would not stand scrutiny in the court," a CBI official said. He also clarified that CBI was not bothered about whether David Coleman Headley — the Lashkar-e-Taiba operative now in a US prison — had described Ishrat as a terrorist or not to the National Investigation Agency.

"Much of the controversy over Ishrat being a LeT cadre or not is borne out of politics...the CBI is steering clear of all such politics. The Gujarat high court had in fact earlier pulled us up for investigating into the credentials of the killed persons.

The court is clear that even a terrorist cannot be killed in cold blood," the top CBI official said.