In court, UPA flip-flopped on Ishrat Jehan's role

MUMBAI: Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley on Thursday asserted that Thane's Ishrat Jahan, 19, gunned down in an encounter in Gujarat in 2004, was a member of the terror outfit.

The incident, in which three men were also shot, ballooned into a political controversy with senior cops prosecuted in the "fake encounter" case.

Headley said he had heard from his handlers that Ishrat was a member of LeT's women's wing. Her name came up as special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam questioned Headley about LeT activities in Gujarat, especially about the outfit's Muzzamil Butt's “botched-up operation“. “I think it was about ashootout with the police at a naka (picket),“ Headley said. Nineteen-yearold college student Ishrat Jahan, shot dead in an encounter with police in Gujarat in 2004, was a Lashkar-e-Taiba member, Let operative David Coleman said in his deposition on Thursday .

“There was a female member of LeT who was killed in a shootout,“ Headley said. Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam Nikam gave him three names: Noorjehan Begum, Ishrat Jahan and Mumtaz. “I think it is the second one,“ Headley said, causing a flutter in the court of special judge G A Sanap here where he deposed for the third day over video from the US.

Headley's deposition is significant as it tallies with a report in Lashkar-aligned Ghazwa Times shortly after the 2004 encounter claiming Ishrat as a “martyr“. The report was later removed.

Headley had given a similar account to a National Investigation Agency (NIA) team that had met him in 2010. During the trial of his co-defendant Tahawwur Rana in the US, Headley had mentioned that Ishrat was an LeT member. His remarks on Thursday reconfirmed this assertion.

Interestingly, the UPA government altered an affidavit it had submitted to the Gujarat high court that named her as a terrorist.

Though trial in the “fake encounter“ case is still on, whether Ishrat and three others shot in the encounter were part of a terror plot, has been politically contentious ever since the UPA government submitted two affadavits -one in 2007, saying the four were terrorists and the second one in 2009, saying there was no conclusive evidence.

The UPA decision almost led to the arrest of IB officials. The CBI request to prosecute them was denied last year. Ishrat, a Khalsa College student of Mumbra in Thane, was killed with Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai from Kerala, and two alleged Pakistanis -Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana -on June 15, 2004, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad for allegedly conspiring to kill then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

BJP's opponents have repeatedly charged Gujarat Police with staging an encounter and questioned the allegations against Ishrat.

Earlier, when Nikam had asked if he knew “of any female suicide bomber in the LeT“, Headley's answer was a quick “no“.“Can you name any suicide bomber in Lashkar?“ Nikam asked again. “No,“ Headley said. As the deposition was being wrapped up for the day, Headley said, “The woman I mentioned is not a Pakistani. She was an Indian national, I was given to understand.'' Nikam later told the electronic media that Headley had said Ishrat was a “suicide bomber“ and that the deposition assumed importance as it established that she was an LeT operative. However, in his deposition, Headley never called Ishrat a “suicide bomber“.

D G Vanzara, a former DIG of the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Gujarat and a key accused in the encounter case, said Headley vindicated not just his, but the stand of Gujarat Police and Intelligence Bureau (IB) which had for years said that Ishrat was an “LeT fidayeen''.

He said “a genuine encounter'' was given a fake tag through an act of “political conspiracy to target Gujarat cops and victimize them, keeping them behind bars for eight years''. Vanzara, also an accused in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case, was released on bail last year.