Was asked to go up to Modi in Ishrat SIT: Satyapal Singh

BJP MP in Lok Sabha and former Mumbai police commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh, who had worked on the SIT formed by the Gujarat high court to investigate alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan, on Thursday claimed that he was asked by the then Union home minister to “go up to Narendra Modi”. While speaking in the Lok Sabha, Mr Singh urged Union home minister Rajnath Singh to set up an inquiry commission to bring out the “truth” in the Ishrat Jahan case. He also claimed that the SIT had conducted a partial investigation and influenced witnesses to prove that it was a fake encounter by the Gujarat police and their ultimate target was the then Gujarat chief minister.

“I was told to go right upto the top, go up to Modiji. (I was told) that’s why you have been selected. I had refused,” he said.

Mr Singh claimed that he made excuses like the lack of knowledge of Gujarati to withdraw from the SIT because he did not want to be part of a dishonest investigation to please the Congress party. Though he did not name any person, he claimed that he was pressurised by a top Congress leader to carry out the investigation in such a manner that it would prove that the encounter was fake.

“The person who was made the chairman of the SIT after me did the investigation as the Congress wanted. In return, a case against his son, who is an IAS officer from Bihar, was withdrawn,” Mr Singh said.

The BJP MP also named Satish Verma, the Indian Police Service officer who served as lead investigator in the SIT investigation and said that he had tampered with the statements of witnesses. All eight witnesses, whose statements were recorded by Mr Verma had later told Mr Singh that their statements were doctored.

Mr Singh also alleged that the statement of David Headley, which was recorded by the NIA was not provided to the SIT initially and later it was made available after deleting the paragraph related to Ishrat Jahan.