New Delhi, Sep 25: The missing files related to Ishrat Jahan encounter case has been a mystery. Earlier, the Home Ministry had conducted an internal enquiry into the missing files that would answer a number of unanswered questions. On Sunday, the Home Ministry has registered a FIR and a formal police investigation has been launched. In the FIR that the Home Ministry filed at Parliament Police station, it has listed five documents. As per reports by TOI, these documents have been missing from the North Block, including the Ishrat affidavit, amended by former home minister P Chidambaram.
The Home Ministry has filed the FIR with Delhi Police to investigate the actual reasons of how the crucial files went missing and the Police has however, geared up for probing into the matter very seriously. As per reports by TOI, the Home Affairs Ministry approached Delhi Police with a complaint two days ago at the Parliament Street police station. It was after this, than an FIR of criminal breach of trust against unknown persons was registered.
As per reports by TOI, the MHA complaint says “why, how and under what circumstances Ishrat papers went missing is a matter of police investigation”. Earlier, an internal probe was conducted by former additional secretary of foreigners division in MHA in May and a report was submitted to Rajnath Singh. (ALSO READ: Rajnath Singh seeks 3-month extension for Ishrat Jahan probe officer B K Prasad; Narendra Modi gives 2)
The revelations will fuel a debate between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress as the cops are likely to question several bureaucrats who served in the Home Ministry during UPA-2 regime. The FIR lodged today is registered under section 409 of IPC. This section deals with criminal breach of trust by public servant, against unknown public servants.
As per reports by PTI, the first affidavit was filed on the basis of inputs from Maharashtra and Gujarat Police besides Intelligence Bureau where it was said the 19-year-old girl from Mumbai outskirts was an activist of Lashkar-e-Taiba but it was ignored in the second affidavit, Home Ministry officials said. The second affidavit, claimed to have been drafted by Chidambaram, said there was no conclusive evidence to prove that Ishrat was a terrorist, the officials said.
As per reports by The Hindu, the Home Ministry has named the missing documents, which includes the copy of an affidavit vetted by the then-Attorney General, late G.E Vahanvati and submitted in the Gujarat High Court in 2009; and the draft of the second affidavit vetted by the AG on which changes were made.(ALSO READ: Ishrat Jahan case: Will approach Supreme Court under Article 32 if fundamental rights violated, says R.K. Kapoor)
Ishrat Jahan along with Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in the encounter with Gujarat Police in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. On March 10, the Home Minister had disclosed in Parliament that certain pages from Ishrat files were missing. Taking into consideration the mystery, a one-man committee was set up to trace the missing documents related to the alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan.
The first affidavit was filed on the basis of inputs from Maharashtra and Gujarat Police besides Intelligence Bureau where it was said the 19-year-old girl from Mumbai outskirts was an activist of Lashkar-e-Taiba but it was ignored in the second affidavit, Home Ministry officials said. The second affidavit, claimed to have been drafted by Chidambaram, said there was no conclusive evidence to prove that Ishrat was a terrorist, the officials said.
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