NEW DELHI, June 30:
Amid a tussle between IB and CBI over action against Intelligence Bureau’s special director Rajendra Kumar in Ishrat Jahan case, new Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami today said he will see whether there was enough evidence to prosecute the senior IPS officer.
“I will see what evidence is available. I will see the documents,” he told reporters here after taking charge as Union Home Secretary.
He was replying to a question whether the CBI has enough evidence to prosecute Kumar for his suspected role in the conspiracy to carry out the alleged fake encounter in which Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in Gujarat nine years ago.
Last week, a senior Home Ministry official said that CBI had shared with the Ministry evidence against the special director of IB after which the ministry told CBI that this does not show that Kumar was part of the conspiracy.
The Home Ministry has so far maintained that the evidence against Kumar was not sufficient to give sanction to CBI to prosecute Kumar in the alleged fake encounter case.
The CBI has not yet sought sanction from the Home Ministry, which is the cadre controlling authority of IPS officers, to prosecute Kumar.
Officials said CBI was planning prosecute and arrest Kumar after his retirement from service on July 31, without asking of sanction from the Home Ministry.
But CBI sources have been maintaining that they do not need sanction from the Home Ministry to prosecute Kumar as the case is of alleged fake encounter and not connected with duties of any government officer.
CBI sources said even in some case of alleged fake encounters in Punjab which were probed by the agency, no sanction for prosecution was needed.
Last fortnight, CBI had grilled the senior IB officer to find out his alleged role in the conspiracy to carry out the fake encounter in which Ishrat and three others were killed.
CBI sources have been maintaining that they have evidence indicating that Kumar was one of the officers who had interrogated Ishrat when she was allegedly taken into illegal custody by Gujarat Police before being killed in the alleged staged encounter.
They said the officer was questioned at length with regard to the alleged interrogation and other inputs which suggest his role in the conspiracy leading to the encounter.
The CBI sources had said that during questioning, Kumar was evasive and continuously repeated that he did not remember fine points about the incident as it happened nine years ago.
The CBI had questioned the IB officer twice suspecting his role in the fake encounter in which 19-year-old Ishrat was killed along with three others on June 15, 2004 allegedly by a team of Crime Branch officials on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
The sources said Kumar, a 1979-batch IPS officer of Manipur- Tripura cadre, had allegedly generated intelligence input that a group of Lashkar terrorists are coming to Ahmedabad to target Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. (PTI)
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