E-Paper
Ishrat Jahan encounter case petitioner Gopinath Pillai dies in road accident in Kerala
Gopinath Pillai, the father of Pranesh Kumar alias Javed Sheikh, who was killed along with Ishrat Jahan in 2004, died when his car was hit by a truck in Kerala’s Alappuzha district.
Gopinath Pillai, the father of Pranesh Kumar alias Javed Sheikh who was killed along with Ishrat Jahan in an alleged encounter with Gujarat police in 2004, died on Friday after sustaining injuries in a road accident in Kerala’s Alappuzha district, police said.
According to the police, Pillai, 76, was injured two days ago in Pattanakad when his car was hit by a truck and admitted to a hospital with serious injuries on his head.
“He was travelling with his brother in the vehicle. It lost control and skidded on the opposite track and subsequently, a truck hit it. We have identified the truck and the driver is in custody,” Pattanakad sub-inspector Shajimon said, adding that no foul play was suspected in the preliminary inquiry.
Pranesh was killed along with Ishrat, a 19-year-old college girl from Mumbra near Mumbai, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Rana by officials of Ahmedabad Police’s crime branch on the outskirts of the city on June 15, 2004.
Gujarat police later claimed the four were Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists and out to kill then chief minister Narendra Modi.
Pillai fought lengthy legal battles and believed his son was a victim of an extrajudicial killing and that the police were lying about him. He was the first to allege that the encounter was fake and stage-managed to get sympathy for Modi.
The former employee of the Bharat Heavy Electricals said Pranesh, who married a Muslim woman and later converted, visited him with his family two weeks before the encounter. The car in which Pranesh travelled to Alappuzha was later found at the encounter site.
Pillai, a widower, said in an interview to the Hindustan Times in 2012 that his son converted after he fell in love with a Muslim girl. He said the incident had left deep scars on his life and people ostracised him dubbing the father of a “terrorist”.
He said he was forced to sell his two-acre rubber plantation to fight the case for more than a decade.
His daughter-in-law Sajjida and three grandchildren often called on him, he said.
