Ishrat Jahan case: Don’t politicise terror, Rajnath tells Opposition

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Thursday discussed the raging controversy over the affidavits filed in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. Replying on the issue, Home minister Rajnath Singh said any issue related to terrorism should not be politicised.

“Be it Ishrat Jahan case or any such case, there should not be a flip-flop by any government. But there has been a flip-flop by UPA govt in this case,” said Singh.
He said, “David Headley's statement is only a reaffirmation of what UPA government said in its earlier affidavit.”

A terrorist has no caste or religion, he is just a terrorist, he added.

The first affidavit was filed on the basis of inputs from the Maharashtra and Gujarat police, besides the Intelligence Bureau, where it was said that the 19-year-old girl from the outskirts of Mumbai was an LeT activist, but this was ignored in the second affidavit, home ministry officials said.

The second affidavit, said 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.

Read: Ishrat case: Jaitley accuses Congress of 'colluding' with accused

Former 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 the court.

“Only after the affidavit was revised, as directed by the minister, did the file come to me,” Mr Pillai had said.

Read: Ishrat killed in ‘cold blood’, encounter was fake, says SIT officer

Mr Chidambaram had said the second affidavit in the case was “absolutely correct”.

He had also maintained that intelligence agencies can only get inputs, they could not certify. The state police, which was to file the chargesheet, has to investigate and get evidence before filing it, he had said.

Mr Chidambaram has also expressed disappointment over Mr Pillai distancing himself from the affidavit issue, despite being “equally responsible”.

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 in the encounters were LeT terrorists and had landed in Gujarat to kill then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.