Fourteen policemen involved in the Ishrat Jahan encounter on Tuesday alleged there was “serious groupism and infighting” among senior IPS officers in Gujarat as a result of which they were being victimised and they have approached the high court for transferring the case.
The case relating to the encounter should be transferred either to the CBI or any other SIT and there should be no officer of state police on board, they said in an application before the Gujarat high court.
Ishrat Jahan, along with three others — Javed Sheikh, alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar — had been killed on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004 in a police encounter.
IPS officer G.L. Singhal and 13 other policemen in the application alleged that “on account of serious groupism and infighting among senior ranked IPS officers” they were being victimised in Gujarat.
The policemen stated that they are anticipating arrest by the present SIT, which has now virtually become a one-man team of IPS officer Satish Verma, following the April 21 order by a high court bench comprising Justice Patel and Justice Abhilasha Kumari.
Singhal and others have contended that handing over the probe to only one IPS officer would be “prejudicial” to them. They also expressed serious apprehensions that Verma could take coercive steps against them, generate fake evidence and may falsely implicate them in the case. In their application, the policemen have said that “Verma is acting either at the behest of or in connivance with senior IPS officers.” —PTI