Was given 'allurements' to falsely implicate Modi, says IB director Rajendra Kumar on Ishrat case

Former IB Special Director Rajendra Kumar on Saturday said that he was offered allurements to give false evidence for implicating the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

"Allurements were offered that post retirement you will be given a big post, but I said that I will not give false evidence. They wanted that I should give a statement which would be an evidence for implicating the then Gujarat chief minister who was emerging as the biggest challenge to the then government, UPA. But I said that I will not give false statements," Kumar told ANI.

He also said that the IB doesn"t have any connections with the encounters and has nothing to do with the actions taken by the police. "It was the police who did the encounters. Our work is only to give information and inputs. The IB has nothing to do with the actions taken by the police," he said.

The former IB special director said that a detailed affidavit was filed by the MHA on August 6, 2009 which proved that the inputs provided by the IB in the encounter were all correct.

"After that affidavit which proved that the inputs provided by the IB were correct, some people got disgruntled. They pressurized the witnesses and tried to prove that the affidavit was wrong by doing various manipulations," he said.

"It was all part of the conspiracy in which a very senior Congress leader, who hails from Gujarat, was the mastermind and was giving instructions to the people with an aim to somehow prove that the affidavit of the MHA is proven wrong. He, along with some of the disgruntled police officers, did all this," he added. He also said that the witnesses were pressurized and told to give their testimonies.

"It was all part of the conspiracy which was targeted at the then Gujarat chief minister and home minister," he added.

Testifying via video-link from the US, main conspirator of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, David Coleman Headley picked up Ishrat's name when quizzed by Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam about a "botched up operation" mentioned to him (Headley) by LeT commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi and said that the 19-year-old girl was an LeT operative.

The CBI had filed the charge sheet against Kumar and three other IB officers despite the Law Ministry's denial of sanction to prosecute them.

The CBI has alleged that the IB officers had conspired to eliminate the victims, kidnapped them and held them in illegal confinement before the killings. It said Kumar had supplied arms and ammunition used in the crime to another accused IPS officer Girish Singhal to be handed over to Deputy SP Tarun Barot.