Former Gujarat Director General of Police (DGP) PP Pandey was discharged by a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in 2004 Ishrat Jahan ‘encounter’ case. Special CBI Judge JK Pandya pronounced the order to grant relief to Pandey.
Pandey was arrested in 2013 by the CBI and he spent nearly 19 months in jail. He was released on bail in February 2015, following which he was reinstated in the state police. He retired from his service in 2017.
Advertisement
Pandey was named in the CBI’s original charge sheet along with six other Gujarat Police officials in July 2013 and in a supplementary charge sheet in February 2014, four Intelligence Bureau officials were named for the unlawful killings, abduction, criminal conspiracy etc.
The CBI had claimed in the charge sheet that Ishrat Jahan and others were killed in a staged encounter and that the police claim of having fired on her in ‘self-defence’ was a lie.
At the the time of the ‘encounter’, former Gujarat DGP Pandey was heading the state crime branch when 19-year-old Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, were killed in an alleged encounter with the police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on 15 June 2004.
The Gujarat police had claimed that Ishrat and the others had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and had plotted to kill then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
As per media reports, the CBI had opposed Panday’s discharge and had communicated to the court that the agency has evidence regarding his involvement in the ‘encounter’.
Whereas, a special CBI court is likely to pronounce its order on a plea by two Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials challenging the summons issued to them by a magistrate in the Ishrat Jahan ‘encounter’ case.
Rajeev Wankhede and T S Mittal, assistant central intelligence officers at the time of the ‘encounter’, have challenged the summons issued by a metropolitan magistrate’s court here.
CBI judge J K Pandya reserved his order on their pleas till January 23.
