Nine years down the line, the encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others still carries explosive potential. The police claimed they had plans to target Narendra Modi, a claim demolished by repeated investigating agencies. Now the CBI's probe into the conspiracy behind the killings, accessed by NDTV suggest that the top leadership of the Gujarat government might have been in the know of the encounter.
Even more damaging are the CBI's revelations on the role of the Intelligence Bureau in stage managing this and another encounter, that of a young man called Sadiq Jamal, a year prior to Ishrat's encounter.
But given the intense pressure on the CBI, will it be able to move forward on unearthing why so many were killed in cold blood, invoking a false threat to Narendra Modi?
