The whole truth in the Ishrat Jahan case is far from apparent yet. The matter remains sub judice, so arriving at a conclusion would amount to contempt of court, but a broad narrative with two versions of the story has been established in the media, including social media.
Depending on whether you are a BJP or a Congress supporter, Rightist or Leftist, you’ve probably picked the version you like. It is possible, of course, that both are partly right, and partly wrong. For example, it could be that two of the four people killed had some shady terror connections, and that the encounter was fake and therefore illegal.
Truth is a hard thing to get at. Beyond the big mystery, there are several little mysteries that have cropped up in the nine years since the encounter took place.
On a Sunday three weeks ago, I called Rauf Khan, the Nationalist Congress Party corporator who chaperones Ishrat’s family, to seek an appointment with them. They were in Delhi.
“We’re returning on Tuesday,” he said on the phone. “Call then”. Tuesday he said come by Wednesday. On Wednesday morning he agreed to a meeting in Mumbra, at a restaurant owned by his associate Munna Sahil, a local businessman with interests in real estate apart from hospitality.
It is 40 km by road from Bandra in Mumbai to Mumbra. When I got there as agreed, Khan was not around. He answered his phone to say he was in Thane, and that I could not meet Ishrat’s family. “There is a threat to their lives,” he said. Less than two hours earlier, he had said no such thing.
He eventually agreed to arrange a phone conversation with them, though he wouldn’t give any numbers.
Eventually there was a call from Nusrat, one of Ishrat’s sisters. She repeated what Khan had said, that there was a threat to their lives. “There are policemen sitting outside our house since morning,” she said. On being asked if the family had actually received any threat, she said they had got none. They were going by what they had been told by their minders.
I figured I’d go and have a look. Mumbra is a small place, and the Ishrat case is infamous, so the house shouldn’t be too hard to find, I thought.
A former Congress mayor of Thane, Nayeem Khan, who has been in Mumbra the past 40 years, mentioned that the family lives in Rashid Compound. He added that most people in Mumbra have remained aloof from the Ishrat Jahan case, and the family is not well known locally.
Rashid Compound has several buildings. A building with three policemen in uniform sitting outside seemed the likely place. I asked if Ishrat Jahan’s family lived there, and got a blank look. “Who? Do you have an address?” the constable asked. Either he had not heard of Ishrat Jahan, or Bollywood’s loss had been the constabulary’s gain.
Nearby shops were not much help either. Different shopkeepers had different ideas of where the family lives. No one knew for sure, it seemed.
Finding Ishrat Jahan in Mumbra was proving harder than expected. A visit to the local police station seemed necessary. A constable Bhamle there had heard of Ishrat Jahan, but denied the local police had given any police protection to the family. He had also heard of the case involving the attack on Ishrat’s mother Shamima Kauser and Munna Sahil on June 19 when they were returning to Mumbra from Ahmedabad. It was a road accident, Bhamle said, and another of his colleagues chipped in to explain what had happened. “There was a speed breaker, and their vehicle braked hard, so the bike which was behind them crashed into them,” he said. “It was nothing.”
Munna Sahil had alleged that this was an attempt to bump them off. The story had been reported widely.
The next morning, at exactly 11.34 am according to my call record, I spoke to Nusrat Jahan again, to clarify whether they had moved house, and if they were being given police protection. “We are still in Mumbra in Rashid Compound,” she said. “We have been given police protection since yesterday.”
Two hours later, a sudden press conference was announced starring the Ishrat family at Mumbai’s press club. At this press conference, Ishrat’s sister Musharrat and Rauf Khan, accompanied by Mahesh Bhatt and activist Shabnam Hashmi, alleged that some people claiming to be policemen had knocked on their door at around 2.30 am the previous night, and they were in grave danger.
Nusrat had not mentioned any of this two hours earlier, even while speaking about the threat they faced.
The assistant commissioner of police in charge of this area seemed a likely person to explain what was going on. ACP Amit Kale confirmed that the family of Ishrat Jahan had been provided police protection. Mr Kale said that two men from the local police station who had been assigned to guard the family had gone up to check if everything was all right. The matter of alleged threat to the lives of the Jahan family, Rauf Lala and Munna Sahil, due to this incident, had meanwhile reached the Union home minister.
The state police force reports to the home department, which is headed by minister R.R. Patil of the NCP, the party to which Rauf Khan belongs. Khan and Sahil are backed and advised by local NCP Member of the Legislative Assembly, Jitendra Awhad, according to local Mumbra journalist Anwar Sheikh, who runs a weekly called Thane ka Tehelka.
Awhad won the seat for the first time in 2009, defeating the Shiv Sena candidate. The Mumbra vote is believed to have decisively gone in his favour.
Did the police inadvertently frighten Ishrat’s family, or was it deliberate? Was the alleged attack on Munna Sahil only a road accident?
The big mystery surrounding Ishrat Jahan’s death, and the massive political battles involving the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Intelligence Bureau in Delhi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress everywhere, are events in a parallel universe. In Mumbra itself, there are only the little mysteries. And the players are not the CBI, IB, BJP and Congress.
samrat.choudhury@deccanmail.com