New Delhi:
Amid a raging controversy over the killing of Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan by Gujarat police in an alleged fake encounter, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Wednesday said he was trying to find out if she was a terrorist.
"I am trying to get the information," Mr Shinde told reporters when asked whether or not the 19-year-old girl killed was a terrorist.
The Home Minister, however, accepted that divergence of opinion exists between Intelligence Bureau (IB), which coordinated with Gujarat police, and CBI probing the incident over the issue.
Mr Shinde denied he had received any letter from IB Director Asif Ibrahim lodging protests against CBI investigation suggesting involvement of one of the agency's Special Directors--Rajinder Kumar.
"Why (would) the IB chief write to me? He would come and speak to me. He has not written anything to me on this line," he said.
Ishrat and her friend Javed Shaikh, alias Pranesh Pillai and two Pakistani nationals Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, were killed near Ahmedabad by a team of Gujarat Crime
Branch officials on June 15, 2004.
The probe was later handed over to CBI on the direction of the Gujarat High Court.