Ishrat Jahan case: IB boss questioning put off

Gujarat cadre IPS officer Satish Verma’s continuation in the investigation team of the Ishrat Jahan encounter case has come under a shadow after Intelligence Bureau special director Rajinder Kumar accused Verma of bias and sought his removal. Rajesh Ahuja reports.

Gujarat cadre IPS officer Satish Verma’s continuation in the investigation team of the Ishrat Jahan encounter case has come under a shadow after Intelligence Bureau special director Rajinder Kumar accused Verma of bias and sought his removal.

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Verma is assisting the CBI on the directions of the Gujarat High Court in the probe into the encounter killing of Mumbai college girl and alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Ishrat Jahan along with one Indian national Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai and two Pakistani nationals — Jeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana.

The encounter took place on June 15, 2004. Kumar was heading the IB’s Ahmedabad unit at that point in time.

Kumar’s demand for removal of Verma comes in the backdrop of a behind-the-doors clash between the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the IB over the probe agency’s insistence to question the senior intelligence officer.

The CBI was earlier slated to question Kumar on Friday. “The questioning has been deferred by three days,” a CBI officer said.

“We are following the laid down procedure and have told the government as much,” he added, insisting that the agency did not have an axe to grind in the direction that the fake encounter probe was taking.

“It is not a clash between the IB and the CBI,” insisted an IB official.

Kumar, however, is learnt to have told the CBI that he had been at loggerheads with Verma at the time of his posting in Ahmedabad. Verma was part of the investigation team that examined Kumar earlier on May 31.

In an effort to cool things down, Union home secretary RK Singh met with CBI chief Ranjit Sinha and IB chief Syed Asif Ibrahim in the afternoon.