Named by the CBI in the Ishrat Jahan “fake” encounter case, former special director of the Intelligence Bureau, Rajinder Kumar, has rubbished the allegations and reiterated his charge that Ishrat and her accomplices were part of a terror module.
Kumar claimed that he is innocent and that the case won’t stand in court. Speaking to a news channel, Kumar stressed that no criminality was involved in the 2004 operation in Gujarat that ended with the death of Ishrat, her friend Javed Sheikh alias Parnesh Pillai in Gujarat and two others believed to be Pakistani nationals. The entire incident was projected as an encounter by the Gujarat police.
The CBI had filed a chargesheet in the special court in Ahmedabad, last week, against Kumar, a 1979-batch IPS officer, and P Mittal, MK Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede. Kumar has been charged with criminal conspiracy and murder while the other three were slapped with charges of criminal conspiracy, wrongful confinement, kidnapping and wrongful concealment of facts.
Kumar was also slapped with additional charges under the Arms Act for allegedly providing arms and ammunition used in the case on June 15, 2004.
Defending the operation, Kumar said, “We are not vultures; we don’t target innocent people,” adding that the CBI had little clue about how counter-terrorism works.
“I performed my duty,” he said.
The CBI is set to approach the government seeking sanction for prosecution against Kumar and the other three Intelligence Bureau officials after Attorney General GE Vahanvati suggested that CBI needed a prior nod before prosecuting Intelligence Bureau officers in the case.
