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Fourteen policemen involved in the Ishrat Jahan encounter on Tuesday alleged there was "serious groupism and infighting" among senior Indian Police Service 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 5the Central Bureau of Investiugation or any other Special Investigation Team 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-- was 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, who like Satish Verma are harbouring personal grudge against them, for reasons best known to them".
The application was urgently mentioned before Justice Patel on Tuesday. However, the Court refused to hear the plea saying that it will be heard in a routine course when the matter is listed for hearing or along with the main case which is scheduled to come up again on May 12.
Meanwhile, senior counsel Nirupam Nanavati, representing the aggrieved police officers, submitted that there was 'deep internal rivalry among the IPS officers, because of which his clients were being victimised.
Justice Patel, however, said that the division bench hearing the case was not present. He further said that the police officers cannot be heard at this stage as they were not even named accused in the case. They can be heard only after their arrest, he added.
In their application, the policemen accused Verma of using 'extra legal' investigation methods so as to falsely implicate them in the case. They have cited complaints of certain police officials who had claimed that Verma was employing coercive tactics to extract statements from them.
Besides Singhal, the 13 others who have moved the application were Tarun Barot, J G Parmar, D H Goswami, B A Chavda, K M Vaghela, R I Patel, K S Desai, C J Goswami, T Vyas, N B Saiyyed, M N Menat, B R Bharwad and A J Chowdhary.
The Crime Branch which carried out the encounter had claimed that the four victims were Lashkar terrorists who had come to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.