CBI takes charge of Ishrat Jahan encounter case

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday formally took over investigation into the 2004 fake encounter death of Mumbai college girl Ishrat Jahan and three others, following directions from the Gujarat High Court.

A team of CBI officials headed by IG V V Laxminarayan, who heads the Hyderabad Zone of the agency, was handed over the case papers and other documents related to the case in Ahmedabad by officials of the high court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has termed the police encounter as "fake".

Investigating officer for the case G Kalaimani, who holds the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), DIG Arun Bothra from the CBI Special Crime Zone (II) besides lower rank officials were present on the occasion.

According to SIT officials, they handed over case papers, evidences, original statements along with English translations to the agency.

The CBI, for the time being, would be operating from the office allotted to them in Gandhinagar old secretariat campus. It was given this office after it took over in 2010 the investigation into the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

On December 1 last year, the high court handed over to the CBI further probe into the incident on June 15, 2004 when Ishrat (19) and Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were shot dead by an Ahmedabad Crime Branch team.

Investigation by SIT, which was set up to ascertain genuineness of the police action, had concluded that it was a staged killing and death of the four had taken place before the encounter.