Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said he has taken note of the claims and counter-claims being made on the controversial Ishrat Jehan case but refused to comment further as the Parliament s
Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said he has taken note of the claims and counter-claims being made on the controversial Ishrat Jehan case but refused to comment further as the Parliament session is still on.
“As you know a lot of claims and counter-claims have been made on the issue. But Parliament is in session, so I can’t speak,” Mr Singh told reporters when asked whether he has taken cognisance of the matter.
The political row over the case, however, continued unabated on Friday with more reports coming to fore claiming that former home secretary G.K. Pillai, had said in 2013 that she has to be given the benefit of doubt on the issue whether she was an LeT operative.
“I don’t think there is any conclusive evidence against Ishrat Jahan. Unless any proper investigation is carried out, we will have to give her the benefit of doubt,” the retired bureaucrat had said in 2013 according to media reports. Asked to comment on his comments in 2013 and the recent remarks, he said on Friday, “My comment in 2013 was in a particularly context. The context was not to vilify a dead person unless further investigation threw up more evidence. “I have said even now that evidence is not conclusive about Ishrat’s LeT membership. But her conduct of travelling with Javed raises questions that something was amiss.”
Mr Pillai has maintained that the second affidavit of the Central government in Gujarat high court filed in 2009 contradicting the earlier affidavit’s claim that Jahan was an LeT operative was drafted by the then home minister P. Chidambaram without consulting officials.
The home minister tried to distance the government from the JNU row saying it was a police matter and the investigation is being carried out by the Delhi police.
“Whatever the Delhi police has to do, they are doing. I have nothing to say on that,” he said when asked whether the sedition charges should not have been slapped against JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar.
Kumar and two others, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were arrested for allegedly raising anti-India slogans at an event organised on February 9 against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
While Kumar, who was slapped with the sedition charge, was released from jail yesterday, Khalid and Bhattacharya are in judicial custody.
