On July 2, Hindustan Times Delhi edition carried a story with the headline “Ishrat Jahan has links with Kashmir Separatists”. The content of the story contradicted this sensational claim. Even more stunningly, the same story, sans this malicious headline, appeared in the Ahmedabad edition of the newspaper. Originally a story by the paper’s Ahmedabad correspondent, Mahesh Langa, Delhi-based correspondent Abhishek Saran added his byline and headline in the Delhi edition. It was clear what his contribution to the story was. A letter by Shamima Kauser’s lawyer Vrinda Grover to Hindustan Times forced them to withdraw the headline and print a correction the following day. On July 8, a day before the proclaimed absconder ADG of Gujarat Police, P.P. Pandey’s application is due to be heard in the Supreme Court, on July 9, Hindustan Times again chooses to publish the same Abhishek Saran’s plug story for IB on its front page (Link to the story given below). It makes references to telephone intercepts allegedly between Muzzamil and two of those killed in the 2004 fake encounter. In the HT report itself, there is not a whisper about Ishrat Jahan in these alleged communications, and yet the report on the front page is titled, “IB’s Ishrat tapes”. These so-called IB’s Ishrat tapes do not have a single reference to Ishrat Jahan. It takes considerable imagination and motivation, skills that Mr. Saran seems to have mastered, to provide false, baseless and misleading headlines. (These tapes by the way were already broadcast by Headlines Today on June 13, a night before a hearing was scheduled on the matter in the Gujarat High Court. The Hon’ble HC refused to admit these on record).
It is obvious that tired and regurgitated ‘stories’ are being planted and re-planted to save some powerful people who are under investigation for the murder of Ishrat Jahan.
Justice for Ishrat Jahan Campaign
July 8, 2013.
Link to the HT story:
AHMEDABAD: Intelligence Bureau (IB) official Rajinder Kumar, accused of generating fake intelligence ahead of Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, is now under fire from his department in similar killing of Sadiq Jamal in Gujarat. Jamal (22), from Bhavnagar, was killed in a fake encounter in Ahmedabad on January 13, 2003. The same set of Gujarat police officers, who had earlier killed Ishrat Jahan and three others a year-and-a-half later, had bumped off Jamal.Over half a dozen former and current IB officers from Maharashtra have given sworn testimonies against Kumar's version in the Jamal case. The CBI is due to submit them as part of a supplementary chargesheet in August.
Significantly, the CBI has so far not named Kumar as an accused in both encounters despite his apparent culpability under pressure from the UPA government. But he may be arrested in both encounter cases after his retirement on July 31. The CBI probe has found that the Gujarat police got intelligence inputs on Jamal from three IB reports, one from Mumbai in October 2002 and one each from the IB headquarters in New Delhi and from Ahmedabad in November 2002. Kumar had generated the last one. The CBI believes that false inputs from Mumbai and Delhi were also generated at Kumar's behest.
The CBI found that these reports, which said Jamal planned to attack Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia, did not match his profile. The only charges ever registered against Jamal in his hometown were for an altercation in 1996 and an arrest for gambling in November 2002. Based on the multiple reports, the IB detained Jamal in Mumbai on December 19, 2002, and questioned him for about a week. IB-Mumbai concluded that there was no substance to the inputs on Jamal. The clean chit was also sent to the IB headquarters.
On January 3, 2003, Jamal was handed over to the Ahmedabad crime branch for further interrogation. Despite Jamal being in Gujarat police custody, Kumar generated a report that Jamal had not been arrested yet and that efforts were on to locate him. Ten days after getting his custody, the Gujarat police killed him a fake encounter near in Naroda area of Ahmedabad and put out a story that he was out to kill VVIPs. In order to nail Kumar's lie, the CBI has requested the designated court in Ahmedabad that the inputs generated by IB on Jamal should be declassified. The court has given two weeks to the IB to decide on the matter and has fixed the next hearing on the application on July 17. Mumbai scribe Ketan Tirodkar, who was earlier arrested in the case, is on record stating that he took Jamal to encounter specialist Daya Nayak who wanted a scapegoat for an encounter killing to oblige a "big politician in Gujarat". As a result, the journalist said, he filed a report branding Jamal as a member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang and a contract killer for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Tirodkar, who later got bail, has stated that he regrets the decision of becoming a party to the killing of an innocent person.
See also
Ishrat Jahan case: IB can seek immunity if they want, says CBI
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