Ranjit Mahanti
GIVING clean chit to Narednra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday told a special court that no sufficient evidence has been found against Shah in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. Shah, BJP’s election-in-charge in Uttar Pradesh, is facing murder and conspiracy charges in two other fake encounter cases — Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati.
Congress leader and union minister Kapil Sibal on April 28 had raked up alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan to hit out at Narendra Modi, saying the BJP’s PM nominee and Amit Shah were being “shielded” despite existence of “clinching” evidence to arrest them.
In March, the court had issued the notice to probe agency CBI, Shah and former commissioner of police, Ahmedabad KR Kaushik in connection with the case. But in its two chargesheets, CBI filed in the case has not made Shah and Kaushik as accused in the case.
19-year-old Ishrat was killed along with three men by Gujarat policemen. The police team claimed they had been told by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) that the four were terrorists and were planning to assassinate Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujrat and now BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate.