Was Ishrat Jahan Case an Assassination Attempt by Congress on Modi’s Life?

Very rarely has it happened that so many in a country have hounded one man with so much tenacity and hatred only for that man to walk amongst them like a giant unharmed.

From 2002 onwards, Narendra Modi has been singularly targeted by opposition led by Congress, Media and the NGOs.  They have worked in tandem to “nail” Modi.  Over the years, we at Drishtikone have written on the evidence available regarding what was happening in this regard.  How people like Teesta Setalvad not just cooked up evidence but also used hitmen to silence the whistle-blowers.  How people like Sanjiv Bhatt were used without any evidence or proof to somehow “nail” Modi.

• Myths, Facts and Schizophrenic, hallucinating, and hypocritical Anti-Modi Activists
• Shameless targeting of Modi
• Machievellian Activism in Gujarat Riots that Jeopardized Harmony and National Security
• Teesta Setalvad in trouble for having cooked up Gujarat riots “evidence”

But nothing could have prepared one for what the Congress led Government did in case of Ishrat Jahan’s encounter.  The media took that story to a point where a known LeT terrorist was being “transformed” into an innocent woman who had been killed by Narendra Modi’s government.  Whereas the truth was that Ishrat Jahan was the accomplice of the LeT group which was to assassinate Narendra Modi himself.  It was in a highly successful intelligence operation by IB that this group was trapped and then killed.

Here is the timeline of events as they occurred:

June 15, 2004: Ishrat Jahan, Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Shaikh, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana are murdered in an encounter.  Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were Pakistani nationals while Javed Shaikh was a converted Muslim who had been brainwashed.

June 18, 2004: Shamima Raza, Ishrat Jahan’s mother accompanied with Samajwadi Party president, Shakib Khan – held a conference where she denied everything related to Ishrat Jahan.  This was despite the fact that in her deposition to the police she had said something completely different.

July 14, 2004: Ghazwa Times, Lahore quotes Jama’t-ud-Da’wah as having said, “The veil of Ishrat Jahan, a woman activist of LeT, was removed by Indian police and her body kept with other mujahideens (terrorists) on the ground. Ishrat was with her husband on the front seat of the car.”

2007: Many policemen held responsible for the death of Ishrat faced trial in connection with the 2005 encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife.  The NGO activist lobby had become active in a bid to call Ishrat Jahan case a “fake encounter” and the LeT terrorist as an innocent.

August 6, 2009: First affidavit is filed in Gujarat High Court, where Ishrat Jahan is called an LeT terrorist.

September 7, 2009: Metropolitan Magistrate S. P. Tamang submitted a report in the metropolitan court Ahmedabad implicating top Gujarat police officers.  This started a series of articles and narratives from the journalists to paint Modi’s government as criminals based on that report.  The 243 page report was completed within 25 days without any permission from the High Court.  Also, the Metropolitan court went beyond the jurisdiction on what was said in the report.

September 30, 2009: Second affidavit is filed in Gujarat High Court, but in this the reference to Ishrat Jahan being an LeT terrorist is taken away!

February 2014: CBI files a supplementary charge sheet where IB officers are named as the accused in the “fake encounter”.  A CBI officer says: “Nothing changes the fact that it was a joint counter terror operation of IB and Gujarat Police which was turned into a staged encounter. The antecedents of four victims does not change the fact that it was a fake encounter,”  In this Special Director of IB –  Rajinder Kumar was charged with murder and criminal conspiracy.

At the root of the whole issue with the Ishrat Jahan case now is the discrepancy between the two affidavits filed in the High Court by the Home Ministry.

In its first affidavit, filed in August 2009, the home ministry had cited IB inputs that those killed with Ishrat in the alleged encounter were part of a Lashkar sleeper cell, and had objected to a CBI probe into the “encounter”.

In its second affidavit, filed in September 2009, the home ministry, irked by the Gujarat government treating the first affidavit as justification of the encounter, said the IB input did not constitute conclusive proof of the terrorist antecedents of those killed. It supported the demand for a CBI probe. (Source)

It is clear from this news report that instead of going by the actual facts of the case, the Home Ministry was ostensibly targeting the Gujarat Government and the very intelligence operation itself!

Exposures from Senior Bureaucrats in Ishrat Jahan case

Three main interviews exposing how the whole story of Ishrat Jahan was cooked up to portray her as not being a terrorist have come out.  Of Rajendra Kumar, the Special Director of IB; of GK Pillai the then Home Secretary and Mr. RVS Mani, the Undersecretary of Home ministry.

These interviews with the three bureaucrats clearly reveal how the Congress was fabricating the whole story about Ishrat Jahan.  And the king-pin of the whole tampering effort was none other than the Home Minister of that time – P. Chidambaram.

Strange thing is that it is not for the first time that Mr. Mani has spoken out about what happened then with respect to the false Affidavits.  RVS Mani had written about how he was being coerced into signing and creating the false affidavit even back then in 2013.  In fact, he had something very damning to suggest about Satish Verma, the SIT chief – the man who led the entire SIT.  The full document – letter by RVS Mani is embedded at the end of the article.

“He started narrating,” Mani’s letter states, “as to how the 13.12.2001 attack on [the] Parliament of India and 26.11.2008 attacks [on Mumbai] are orchestrated by the Government in power. He stated that both these were with the objective of strengthening the counter terrorist legislation. He narrated that 13.12.2001 was followed by POTA [Prevention of Terrorism Act] and 26.11.2008 was followed by amendment to UAPA [Unlawful Activities Prevention Act] wherein even and [an?] Rupees 10 in any body’s pocket can be treated for [as] proceeds of terrorism.”

“I told him he is entitled to his view.”

He goes on later to say this about Satish Verma.

At the end Mr. Verma dictated a note indicating that two IB persons came to the room of Director (IS-II) with a Draft Affidavit which was put up for approval and after approval filed on 6.6.2009.  Thereafter, since the said Affidavit was misinterpreted by the Government of Gujarat, on orders from the Home Minister, another Affidavit was drafted in the Room of JS (IS.I) with representatives from Ministry of Law, IB etc and the same was filed on 29.9,2009.

I refused to sign the statement and he directed the DSP to treat use it as a Statement under Section 161 of Cr. P. C.  I told him that anything other than fact, I will retract it under Section 164 of Cr. P. C.

As is clear in this note from RVS Mani, the second affidavit of September 29, 2009 was written on direct orders from the Home Minister himself.  It is also obvious here that Satish Verma was working in collusion with the dictates of the Home Minister himself!

Who was Satish Verma after all?

Here, in this news article about how he was removed from the probe due to his overzealous character, something very interesting is said.  He was the nominee of Ishrat Jahan’s mother!

Amid growing concern in the Intelligence Bureau and home ministry over the direction of CBI investigation in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case involving IB special director Rajinder Kumar, the CBI on Thursday removed IPS Satish Verma from its probe team. Verma was a nominee of Ishrat Jahan’s mother in the SIT, formed by Gujarat high court to probe the alleged fake encounter. Verma was later made part of the CBI team which was entrusted with the case by HC after SIT submitted its report.

The development comes amid indications from IB that Satish Verma had been overzealous in the investigation of the case and overtly focused on the role of IB special director in the staged encounter. CBI’s removal of Verma from the probe team comes as a surprise since Verma had been given two extensions to his tenure, his last ending on Friday, on CBI’s demand. (Source)

Here was the Chief of SIT – a Gujarat cadre IPS officer – who not only was a nominee of the LeT terrorist Ishrat Jahan’s mother but during his interaction with RVS Mani also emphasized the ISI narrative of how the Parliament (Dec 2001) and the Mumbai attacks (26/11) were the handiwork of the Indian Government itself!

Satish Verma’s other activities include custodial killings and also helping out those who were to do bombings in Mumbai.

There are other charges that are far more serious. Satish Verma faces the charge of faking an encounter to kill Jasu Gagan Shial in 1996-97 in Porbandar. There are three cases of custodial deaths that took place under the supervision of Verma when he was the Superintendent of Police in Porbandar. Other than Jasu, Verma is alleged to have eliminated Aher Ranmal Ram and Aher Narayan Jesti Bandhiya in cold blood in police custody. Verma is also allegedly involved in a ring that smuggles explosives.

A departmental inquiry was instituted to probe why he let off a key accused in the Gosabara RDX landing case of 1993, which was later used in the Mumbai serial bombings. A division bench of the Gujarat High Court comprising Chief Justice SJ. Mukhopadhyaya and Justice J.B. Pardiwala refused to entertain his plea that the state government was going after him for his disagreement with it in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. Former Under Secretary Mani has said that Verma was “not collecting evidence but engineering evidence”. (Source)

Isn’t it intriguing that an ISI sympathizer was at the helm of the SIT probing the very case of Ishrat Jahan?

How Media played the Quarterback for Congress and Terrorists

We have seen how not only was truth compromised but indeed the national security was heavily damaged with nothing short of collusion of the then government with the corrupt to change the LeT operative’s background to show her as an innocent.  Since Ishrat Jahan was not just an LeT operative but had been moving along with the three other operatives from city to city spending nights with them, it is not possible that her mother would not have known about her work.  She obviously lied.

But more importantly, she got the best shot at furthering the goals of her daughter by getting her nominee – an ISI sympathizer – as the Chief of the very SIT to probe into her daughter’s case!

And this was at a time when none other than the Home Minister, P. Chidambaram himself had played an active role in sanitizing Ishrat Jahan’s background by tampering the second affidavit of September 2009.

In this atmosphere what was media doing?  Here are some tweets which are not only backing the concocted stories but also eulogizing the then Home Minister, Chidambaram who actually played the central protagonist in the whole tampering drama.

When RVS Mani had come out with his story of torture and of how he was hounded by the SIT, CBI and other officials who were colluding with the Congress government, strangely the media houses in India did NOT entertain his story.  The question is WHY?  Was there a brief against doing so from the them government?  Were the journalists in CNN-IBN and Indian Express working with the powers-that-be?

Was Ishrat Jahan part of the hit job by Congress to kill Modi?

Let us ask the obvious question now.  Was Ishrat Jahan and her group given a supari (contract to kill) by someone – most probably Ahmed Patel – to kill Modi?  The evidence is very clear – an LeT terrorist plot is pre-empted by the Indian IB, who draw these terrorists out and kill them in an encounter.  The main aim of the terrorist cell – to kill Modi and top BJP leaders!

There is an attempt thereafter by the NGOs, top media persons, Congress leaders – including the top Ministers – to sanitize the background of this terrorist.  In fact, some of the opposition leaders like Nitish Kumar even call her “Bihar ki Beti”.  A blatant attempt at not just sanitizing but legitimizing Ishrat Jahan as a victim!

Mother of the terrorist gets her nominee – an ISI sympathizer – as the chief of the SIT probing the case.  Metropolitan Magistrate overshoots his brief to come out with a hurried-yet-detailed (go figure!) report to further legitimize Ishrat Jahan!

The main IB officers along with the Gujarat police officers – including Senior Gujarat Police Officer D G Vanzara and Special Director of IB Rajender Kumar are charged with criminal proceedings.  The very officers who were responsible for leading and executing the whole intelligence operation – called by GK Pillai as “one of the best ever”!

Yes, obviously, there was an attempt to “get Modi” via the “Human Rights” route by first sanitizing and legitimizing Ishrat Jahan.  But even more damning is how those who took part in countering this dastardly terror plot were targeted by the government itself with a rare level of vengeance!

The vengeance and extreme steps against the intelligence community and top home ministry bureaucrats who did not “file in line” – indicates that the Congress government was heavily and directed invested in Ishrat Jahan as an asset herself!  They took the intelligence operation to neutralize her and her group personally and went after those who had worked in the national interest!  A national interest, which ran counter to the political interest of the Congress government.  And, in an attempt to “get Modi” in order to finish their political opponent, they unabashedly compromised India’s national security and integrity!

Former Home Ministry official RV Mani’s letter by Firstpost