Ahmedabad:
The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday stayed the Tamang report on the Ishrat Jehan encounter case. Also, a probe has been ordered against Tamang for releasing the report without a court permission.
The magisterial probe report by SP Tamang into the encounter of 19-year-old Mumbai college student Ishrat Jehan had concluded that he was killed in a fake encounter.
In 2004 Ishrat Jehan and four others were killed by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch. The police said they were Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives who had come to Ahmedabad with a plan to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
But, the 243-page report by Magistrate SP Tamang had said: "Ishrat was innocent and was killed only because she was a Muslim and fitted the Gujarat Police's idea of a terrorist."
The report also said that the police carried out this fake encounter to get rewards and promotions. And to curry favour with the Chief Minister, they also floated a story that she and her associates had come to eliminate him, the report added.
Among the 20 policemen accused of her murder:
- The then Additional Police Commissioner (Crime Branch) D G Vanazara and then Assistant Commissioner of Police N K Amin both already in jail in connection the Sohrabudddin fake encounter case.
- Retired Police Commissioner K R Kaushik
- Gujarat Additional DGP (Intelligence) P C Pandey.
- Deputy Commissioner of Police (Gujarat ATS) G L Singhal
- Police Inspector with Ahmedabad Crime Branch Tarun Barot
The probe was a result of pressure from Ishrat's family who all along maintained that their 19-year-old daughter was innocent.