Congress leader from Gujarat conspired to implicate Narendra Modi in Ishrat Jahan case: Ex-IB officer

New Delhi: In a shot in the arm for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), former Intelligence Bureau special director Rajinder Kumar on Saturday claimed, that he was pressurised to implicate the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

Making the explosive claims, Kumar, a 1979 batch IPS officer who retired last year, said a very senior Congress leader hailing from Gujarat was the mastermind of the conspiracy to defame Modi.

While presenting his side of the story, the ex-IB officer said, "As Modi had emerged the biggest challenger to the UPA government, they wanted me to give a statement, which could be used as an evidence to implicate the ex-Gujarat CM".

Kumar maintained that he was allured with big posts after retirement, but he refused to give any false statement.

He further claimed that various witnesses were pressurised and a conspiracy was hatched to defame the IB.

"A detailed affidavit was filed by MHA on Aug 6, 2009 which proved that inputs provided by IB were all correct, following which some people got disgruntled and pressurised witnesses" Kumar said.

It was all part of the conspiracy in which a very senior Congress leader, who hails from Gujarat, was the mastermind.

Kumar alleged that the Congress leader was giving instructions to the people with an aim to somehow prove that the affidavit of the MHA was proven wrong.

CBI had filed a charge sheet against Kumar and three other IB officers despite Law ministry's denial of sanction to prosecute them. Besides Kumar, a 1979 batch IPS officer who retired last year, those named in the charge sheet are P Mittal, MK Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede. In the supplementary charge sheet, Kumar has been charged under sections 302 (murder), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 364 (kidnapping in order to murder), 346, 364 & 368 (wrongful confinement) of IPC, besides sections 3, 25 (A) and 29 of the Arms Act.

Ishrat (19), Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

David Coleman Headley, convicted in the United States for his role in 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, on Thursday confirmed that Ishrat Jahan, killed in an encounter in Gujarat, was indeed a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative.