CBI suspects role of local police in ADG Pandey's run from law

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New Delhi: CBI suspects the role of some Gujarat police officers in helping ADG P. P. Pandey evade arrest in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case and might take action against them.
The agency is on the look-out of Pandey who is facing murder charges in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case and is believed to have gone underground even as the apex court rejected his anticipatory bail on Monday, CBI sources said.
They said they suspect that some Gujarat Police personnel might be helping him escape from the clutches of law. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Pandey, against whom a non-bailable warrant has been issued, saying his conduct in remaining absconding dis-entitled him for the relief.
"Your conduct itself makes you dis-entitled for this plea (bail)," a bench headed by Justice B S Chauhan said while referring to Pandey's behaviour of not submitting to the jurisdiction of the trial court which had issued a non-bailable warrant against him.
Additional DGP Pandey, a 1982-batch IPS officer, has been named as an accused in the 2004 fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan and three others. The apex court had on August 8 refused to grant interim protection from arrest to Pandey till on Monday.
The trial court had on August 7 rejected his plea for exemption from personal appearance and issued a non-bailable warrant against him after he failed to appear before it. Pandey, who was declared absconder, had appeared before the special CBI court in Ahmedabad on July 29 on the direction of the apex court.
Pandey, as the Joint Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad, was heading the Crime Branch when Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter allegedly with Gujarat Police on the city outskirts on June 15, 2004.