Ishrat case: Delhi police starts probe into missing documents

The Delhi police has started a probe into a case of missing document pertaining to the sensational Ishrat Jah-an encounter that rocked the nation in 2004. The document had reportedly gone missing from the North Block office of the MHA.

In March 2016, a team of MHA had found that arou-nd five different documents, including two affidavits, were missing. It was later learnt that the document went missing during the tenure of former Union ho-me minister P. Chidambar. Earlier, it was decided that the probe will be handed ov-er to the CBI, but later the MHA directed the Delhi pol-ice to probe the matter.

V.K. Updhyay, under secretary to the Government of India, has filed a complaint under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust) of IPC in this respect with the Delhi police.

According to the information, two letters written by the then home secretary G.K. Pillai to the then attorney-general G.E. Vahanvati were not traceable. The draft of the second affidavit that came from the AG, to which the then home minister P. Chidambaram made changes, is also missing. Later a draft affidavit sent to the attorney-general was recovered from a computer used by Mr Pillai.

On 15 June, 2004, four persons — Javed Sheikh, Jish-an Johar, Amjad Ali and Is-hrat Jahan — were shot dead in an encounter in Ah-medabad while they were allegedly on a Lashkar mission to assassinate then Gu-jarat CM Narendra Modi.

Shamima Kausar, the mo-ther of Ishrat, had moved a special criminal application (SCA) before the Gujrat high court, seeking a CBI probe into the matter.

The first affidavit in the case was filed on the basis of inputs from Maharashtra and the Gujarat police besides the Intelligence Bureau where it was said that the 19-year-old girl from Mumbai outskirts was a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba activist but it was ignored in the second affidavit.

The second affidavit, said to have been drafted by the then Mr Chidambaram, said there was no conclusive evidence to prove that Ishrat was a terrorist.

In March this year, an inquiry was initiated into the matter by the MHA. The then additional secretary (foreigner) was appointed as the enquiry official. On June 15, he submitted the report. As per finding of the report how, why and under what circumstances these papers were missing or were removed from the files, was a matter of investigation. The MHA then decided to direct the Delhi police to probe the matter.

A police source said that three documents and two affidavits have been shown as missing in the complaint of MHA. “Two office copies of the letters and enclosure sent by the then home secretary to AG. Two draft and affidavit amended by the then home secretary. A document filed by Union of Indian in Gujrat High Court,” these are the five documents, which are missing.

The source said that after taking a legal opinion from the experts they booked the matter under Criminal Breach of Trust as they think someone has intentionally misplaced or removed these vital documents.

The police is further conducting the probe into the matter. No arrests have been made so far.