The Ishrat Jahan 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
The Ishrat Jahan 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 A-G 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 ministry of home affairs 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.
Union home minister Rajnath Singh had told the Parliament on March 10 that the files related to the case 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.
