Investigations into the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case have revealed that a gunny bag containing 17 kilograms of yellow powder recovered from the Indica car, used to bring all four victims to the crime scene by the Gujarat cops on June 15, 2004, was not an explosive material at all.
Contrary to the claims of the Gujarat police, sources said, forensic examinations of the powder — which was allegedly planted on the deceased by the accused cops after the shootout — revealed that it was not an “explosive mixture”. Ishrat along with three others: Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in a fake encounter near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. Immediately after the encounter, Gujarat police had claimed that the victims were on a mission to kill the then state chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi.
“The yellow powder, recovered from inside the car, was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively by the forensic experts, including the then Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives, Baroda. They all opined that the subject chemical mixture was not an explosive material”, sources said. The CBI has mentioned this it in its chargesheet filed in the case recently before a local court in Ahmedabad, they added.
Probe has also established that the victims did not fire even a single bullet on the Gujarat cops during the shootout. “The Special Investigation Team (SIT), constituted by the Gujarat high court in 2010 to probe the allegations of fake encounter, in its report had also maintained that the encounter was staged by the Gujarat police. The agency sleuths also scrutinised the forensic report of the weapons used by accused cops during the shootout and that too revealed that the victims did not fire even a single bullet on the cops,” sources said.
Now the CBI is preparing to file a supplementary chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan case. The agency has sought more time from the competent court to investigate the role of four officers from the Intelligence Bureau (IB).