The Ishrat Jahan encounter killing case once again erupted in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, with Home Minister Rajnath Singh accusing the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government of hatching a “deep conspiracy” to “defame the then Gujarat Chief Minister (Narendra Modi)”.
He also said that a few key documents, including two letters of then Home Secretary (G K Pillai) to then Attorney General (AG) late GE Vahanvati, and the copy of the draft affidavit are so far “untraceable”.
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“Unfortunately, I have to say this that there was a flip-flop by the UPA government in the Ishrat Jahan case,” with regard to her link with terror outfit LeT, he said.
Without naming then Home Minister P Chidambaram, Singh accused him of giving “colour” to terrorism by coining the term ‘saffron terror’.
Singh was replying amid protests by Congress members, who trooped to the Well of the House seeking time to reply to the charges, but were disallowed by the Speaker.
The Minister said recent statements by Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley before a Mumbai court only reaffirmed the first affidavit filed by the UPA government on August 6, 2009 before the Gujarat High Court which had stated that Ishrat had links with LeT.
Earlier, BJD member Kalikesh Narayan Singh blamed both UPA and NDA for playing “vote bank politics” with the case. “Justice has suffered in the case, The issue is not of Ishrat Jahan, but of an extra-judicial killing,” he said, questioning if “both affidavits are not mentioned in the chargesheet. So are they even relevant to the case?”
The case drew spotlight recently after former Home Secretary G K Pillai claimed on television that as Home Minister, Chidambaram had recalled the file a month after the original affidavit that described Ishrat and her slain aides as LeT operatives was filed in the court.
Mumbai girl Ishrat, 19, along with three others, was killed in an encounter with Gujarat Police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.