Ishrat SIT files complaint with CBI; senior cops named

Chairman of the Gujarat high court-appointed SIT, RR Verma, submitted a complaint in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case on Thursday to a joint director of the CBI at the probe agency's Delhi office, along with a 20-page report. The two other members of the Ishrat SIT - Gujarat cadre IPS officers Satish Verma and Mohan Jha - were also present when the chairman handed over the complaint to the CBI.

Sources close to the development said that the CBI will now examine the complaint further and register a fresh FIR in this connection.

The fresh FIR is expected to be registered by Friday, after which the investigating officer for the case will be decided.

The sources also said that 20 policemen who were posted in Ahmedabad crime branch in 2004 when the fake encounter took place, have been named as accused in the complaint.

The sources further said that the complaint included the names of all but one policeman named as accused in the report submitted by judicial magistrate SP Tamang in September 2009.

A DIG rank official will be assigned for the investigation of the case. Among the DIG-rank officers under consideration are SK Palsania, SK Singh and Arun Bothra, the sources said.

After the Ishrat SIT concluded last month that the Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in a fake encounter, the Gujarat high court directed the CBI on December 1 to take over further investigation in the case.

Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan was killed along with three others on June 15, 2004, in a fake encounter by a team of the Ahmedabad crime branch.

The crime branch had said after the encounter that Ishrat, Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana were LeT terrorists on a mission to kill CM Narendra Modi.  Anticipatory bail is only hope..