Top MHA officer to trace files in Ishrat Jahan case

Amid the ongoing political slugfest over the controversial Ishrat Jahan case, the government has set up a one-man inquiry committee, of additional secretary B.K. Prasad, to probe the missing files in the Union home ministry relating to the alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan.

The difficult and challenging task of tracing the missing files and fixing responsibility, if need be, for the missing documents, can finally establish the correct sequence of events: on whether then home minister P. Chidambaram had ordered the filing of the second affidavit “suo motu” as alleged by former home secretary G.K. Pillai, thereby proving the alleged “flip-flop” on the issue by the then UPA government.

While no time limit has been set, Mr Prasad, a 1983-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, has a critical task ahead as the BJP has accused the Congress of deliberately changing the affidavit to establish Ishrat was not a terrorist for “political gains” and “implicating then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi in the case”.

Last week, home minister Rajnath Singh had accused the then UPA government of hatching a “deep conspiracy” to “frame” Mr Modi while he was Gujarat CM in the Ishrat Jahan case. He claimed the previous government had done a “flip-flop” on the links of Ishrat with terrorist outfit LeT, and told Parliament that some key files were missing.

The documents that are missing from the home ministry include the copy of an affidavit vetted by the attorney-general and submitted in the Gujarat high court in 2009 and the draft of the second affidavit vetted by the AG on which some changes were made. Two letters written by then home secretary G.K. Pillai to then attorney-general late G.E. Vahanvati and the copy of the draft affidavit are so far untraceable.

Official sources said Mr Prasad will be given all help by the government and the departments concerned, such as the MHA’s internal security division, to dig out the truth.

Mr Prasad, now serving as additional secretary in the MHA looking after the foreigners division and disaster management, will inquire into the circumstances in which the files relating to Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in an alleged fake encounter in Gujarat in 2004, went missing. The panel will find out the person responsible for keeping the files and relevant issues, a MHA official said.

Home minister Rajnath Singh had told Parliament on March 10 that the files were missing. It may be recalled that while the first affidavit was filed by the UPA government on the basis of inputs from the Maharashtra and Gujarat police, besides the Intelligence Bureau, where it was said the 19-year-old girl from Mumbai’s outskirts was a Lashkar activist, these inputs were ignored in the second affidavit. The second affidavit, claimed to have been drafted by then home minister P. Chidambaram, said there was no conclusive evidence to prove that Ishrat was a terrorist, officials said.

Former Union home secretary G.K. Pillai had claimed that as home minister, Mr Chidambaram had recalled the file a month after the original affidavit, which described Ishrat and her slain aides as LeT operatives, was filed in court. In a virtual blame game, Mr Chidambaram held Mr Pillai equally responsible for the change in affidavit.

Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter with the Gujarat police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. The city crime branch had then said those killed were LeT terrorists and had landed in Gujarat to kill then chief minister Narendra Modi.