In a startling revelation, the CBI probe into Sadiq Zamal Mehtar encounter case has revealed that the Gujarat cops allegedly used the same weapons to kill the Bhavnagar resident which they had used in the alleged fake encounter of Mumbai-based teenager Ishrat Jahan in 2004.
Zamal, a resident of Bhavnagar, was killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat police in Ahmedabad on January 13, 2003.
The CBI on December 21, filed a chargesheet against eight accused police officials in the case, including deputy SP Tarun Barot for the charges under sections 120b (criminal conspiracy), 114 (abatement), 345 (illegal confinement), 365 (abduction) and 302 (murder) of IPC. “The agency in its chargesheet categorically mentioned that the CBI has identified a weapon which was used in both the encounters,” sources said.
While Zamal was killed near Galaxy Cinema in Naroda area in Ahmedabad on January 13, 2003, Ishrat and three others — Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar — were gunned down by the Gujarat police crime branch near Kotarpur on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
After the shootout, the Gujarat police had claimed that Zamal was a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) operative and he was on a mission to kill state chief minister Narendra Modi, sources said adding that the state police had also claimed that there was specific intelligence input about Zamal.
Reacting to this sources in the agency said, “The CBI is likely to file a supplementary chargesheet in Zamal’s encounter case as the agency has not completed its probe against intelligence officials of the state police. Claims of the state police (intelligence wing) is still being probed”.
The agency has so far examined more than 100 witnesses in Zamal case, sources added.
Probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation also revealed that Maharashtra and Gujarat Police illegally kept Zamal in their custody for more than a month. “A few days before his encounter, Zamal was handed-over to the Gujarat Police. This has been mentioned in the chargesheet”, sources said.