Ishrat case: Papers missing, MHA orders internal probe

After the controversy erupted, the home ministry had launched an internal probe as some important documents, particularly those on inputs by the Intelligence Bureau to the Gujarat police’s anti-terror squad, had gone missing.

“Since this is an extremely sensitive matter with serious political ramifications we wanted to conduct a detailed internal inquiry as to what went wrong. We have been able to put together the entire sequence of events to a large extent, including how the intelligence on Ishrat terror module originated and the information that was shared by the Central agencies with the state police. There is no denying the fact that Ishrat was part of the Lashkar module, else she had no business being with the two other Pakistani terrorists who also died in the same encounter,” a senior MHA official said.

David Headley, who was interrogated via video-conferencing in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, had also confirmed Ishrat’s LeT links.

He also made a similar disclosure to a team of officials from the National Investigation Agency who had visited US in 2010 to interrogate him over the Mumbai attacks.

The MHA probe is also trying to ascertain now why Headley’s disclosure on Ishrat to the NIA team was “selectively dropped” from some crucial documents. MHA sources confirmed to this newspaper that in case the matter comes up for a judicial review again in a court of law, the government’s stand will be that Ishrat was linked to Lashkar. Former senior Gujarat police officer D.G. Vanzara, along with six other police officers, were arrested in the encounter case. Mr Vanzara was recently allowed to return to Gujarat after a modification in his bail conditions. The trial of the case, that was investigated by the CBI, is still going on.