The Gujarat high court on Friday reprimanded the state’s junior home minister Praful Patel for failing to carry out its order to transfer three police officers accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.
The high court bench said of Patel’s inaction, “It is very serious that the minister was sitting on the file for almost two months despite the court’s order. This is a clear case of breach of the court’s order.”
The court had ordered the transfer of PP Pande, Girish Singhal and Tarun Barot in February 2011. But the minister did not sign the transfer file for two months and the officers remained in their posts and tried to derail the probe in the case, the court remarked.
Mumbai college student Jahan and three men were allegedly killed in cold blood by the police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2004. The police claimed they were Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists on a mission to assassinate Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
But several judicial probes in 2009 and 2011 concluded that the encounter was fake and the victims were killed in police custody.
{{/usCountry}}But several judicial probes in 2009 and 2011 concluded that the encounter was fake and the victims were killed in police custody.
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