File photo: Absconding senior IPS officer PP Pande
Gujarat Director General of Police has sought a report from the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on senior IPS officer PP Pande, declared absconding in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter killing case.
"We have asked CID-Crime to send us a detailed report on Pande and on receiving it we will talk to state Home department which will decide further course of action," DGP Amitabh Pathak told PTI.
However, the state Home Department was non-committal on whether the government was going to take any action against Mr Pande - who is the Additional Director General of Police - for his absence from duty for the last four months.
"We have to wait till state DGP sends his report," Principal Secretary (Home) SK Nanda told PTI.
Mr Pande, a 1982-batch IPS officer, was the Joint Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad, when Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were gunned down by Crime Branch sleuths on June 15, 2004.
Terming the encounter as "fake", CBI has charged seven Gujarat policemen, including Mr Pande with murder and criminal conspiracy.
The special CBI court has declared him 'proclaimed absconder'. He appeared before the trial court on July 29 after Supreme Court directed him to remain present while rejecting his petition seeking quashing of FIR against him.
Last week, upon CBI's request, the DGP instructed all district and city police chiefs to keep a tight vigil to trace him.
As the CBI tightened its noose in the Ishrat case, Mr Pande stopped attending office as the state crime branch head in March, and went on medical leave.
He did not get his leave extended or explained his absence thereafter, Home Department sources said.
On July 29, he appeared before the court on a stretcher from a private hospital in Ahmedabad where he had been admitted for chest pain.
For a few days, he attended court on a wheel-chair; but again went missing when his applications for exemption from the appearance in the court and for anticipatory bail were rejected by the special CBI court in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
Next day, the CBI court issued non-bailable arrest warrant, and the High Court too rejected his appeal challenging denial of anticipatory bail.
The top cop then approached the Supreme Court, which would hear his appeal tomorrow, but has not offered him protection from arrest in the meantime.