Ishrat case: Satyapal Singh unwilling to head SIT

In what could be a setback to the probe into the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, Maharashtra Additional Director General of Police Satyapal Singh, asked to head the Special Investigation Team formed by Gujarat high court, has requested that he be exempted from the responsibility.

The division bench of justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari had appointed Singh as the head of SIT on May 12.

In a letter to Gujarat high court, Singh, currently posted as ADGP (law & order), has said that the Maharashtra government was reluctant to relieve him, court sources said.

Besides, Singh has also stated that he has some personal reasons for not wanting to take up the job. He is not familiar with the local language, for one.

Also, one of the police officers associated with the encounter, ADGP P P Pande was his batchmate from the 1980 Indian Police Service batch, Singh is reluctant to head the probe, according the letter.

The high court appointed Singh after the earlier SIT chairman Karnal Singh expressed desire to be let off following his posting to Mizoram.

A copy of Singh's letter has been forwarded to the state government and other agencies concerned.

Ishrat, along with three others, was killed in a police encounter on June 15, 2004. Ahmedabad crime branch had claimed that they were Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists who had come to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Last year the high court set up the SIT in response to a petition filed by her mother, to probe the genuineness of the encounter.

The next hearing of the case is on June 24.