Former home minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday defended the second affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case asserting that there was no conclusive evidence to prove she was a terrorist.
Former home minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday defended the second affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case asserting that there was no conclusive evidence to prove she was a terrorist. The Congress leader had been attacked by the BJP which claimed he was biased in drafting the second affidavit.
Speaking with the media after filing his nomination for the Rajya Sabha, Mr Chidambaram refuted the allegations. “The second affidavit does not say anything about withdrawing the first. It has five to six paragraphs only,” he said.
Asserting that it was a fake encounter, the Congress leader said, “The version says it is fake encounter. The persons, who were killed, were in custody for more than two or three days. They were killed at midnight, while they sat in the car and Rs 2.06 lakh was planted on their bodies. All this is the finding of a judge in the Maharashtra judiciary.”
Defending the second affidavit, Mr Chidambaram demanded to know which part of it was politically, morally or ethically wrong.
“In paragraph two, it says why a further affidavit is being filed and in para 5, it says that the government of India shares intelligence inputs regularly with states. Accordingly, we share intelligence inputs. I wish to clarify that the intelligence inputs are not conclusive evidence and you cannot come to any conclusion on the basis of intelligence inputs. It must be investigated by the state and prosecuted in a court of law,” he said.
The former home minister also recalled that the affidavit was filed after Ahmedabad metropolitan judge S.P. Tamang’s report came out, which in September 2009, declared the encounter to be fake. Later investigation, first by the SIT and then by the CBI, had also said that the deceased had been in the custody of the police and that the weapons recovered from them were planted by the policemen.
