Ahmedabad:
The Gujarat High Court has told the CBI to file its chargesheet by July 4 in the case of the shooting of 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan and three others.
The court told the investigating agency that instead of trying to determine whether Ishrat and the others were terrorists, it must focus on the chain of events that led to their killing by Gujarat police officers.
The court ordered the CBI to file its chargesheet, which names the accused and explains the evidence against them.
The state police has claimed that it shot Ishrat, a college student from Mumbai and the others on a highway near Ahmedabad in 2004 because the Intelligence Bureau had warned that the group was planning to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi on behalf of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)
Last week, the judges said to the CBI, "The court is not concerned whether they were terrorists or normal human beings."
They also said, "You (CBI) have been assigned the responsibility to ascertain whether they were killed in a genuine encounter or a fake one, and whether they were in prior custody of Gujarat police or not."
Before the court hearing, the CBI in Gandhinagar questioned Intelligence Bureau Special Director Rajendra Kumar for the second time in connection with the case. (
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The CBI says that it has evidence that Mr Kumar, who was IB's Joint Director in Gujarat at the time, was part of the conspiracy to kill Ishrat and sanctioned the fake encounter by Crime Branch officials.
Mr. Kumar's interrogation has been a contentious issue with the Intelligence Bureau alleging that it sets a dangerous precedent because its members often work undercover and have sources who will dry up if the officers are entangled in police cases.