Agencies
New Delhi, June 13:The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would question Intelligence Bureau (IB) special director Rajendra Kumar on June 18 in connection with the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, sources said on Thursday.
The development comes after a meeting between CBI director Ranjit Sinha and IB director Asif Ibrahim over the issue.
According to sources, the National Security Adviser (NSA) mediated between the two premium agencies as they were on a warpath over the issue. Kumar, a 1979-batch IPS officer from Madhya Pradesh cadre, had earlier cited personal reasons for the delay in appearing before the CBI. He had been questioned earlier and the CBI had asked him to present himself before it again and record his statement as an accused in the case. According to sources, the role of the officer who was posted in Gujarat Intelligence Bureau in 2004 had come under the scanner for the alleged fake input.
His statement would be crucial in finalising the charge-sheet in the encounter case as he was alleged to have played a crucial role in generating an intelligence input about purported plan of Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The CBI on the instruction of the Gujarat High Court had taken over the probe of the fake encounter in which 19-year-old Ishrat, Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004 allegedly by a crime branch team led by then DIG D.G. Vanzara. |
