Former IB Special Director Rajinder Kumar on Thursday claimed that “someone” tried to use him as a “pawn” by dragging his name in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case to “subvert democracy”.
I am not a victim of witch hunt by the CBI. Somebody attempted to use me as a pawn to subvert the democracy in the country. They tried to use me as a pawn. They failed. I did not become their pawn.
When asked about his comments on the testimony of LeT terrorist David Headley before a Mumbai court, Kumar said he would speak on the issue after a day or two.
Testifying via video-link from the US, Headley picked up Ishrat’s name name when quizzed by Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam about a “botched up operation”.
Prodded by Nikam to elaborate on the operation and the members involved in it, he said, “(I was told) It was a shootout with police in which a (female) suicide bomber was killed.”
To which the prosecutor prompted three names of which Headley picked up Jahan before telling the court that “there is a female wing in LeT and one Abu Aiman’s mother headed it.”
CBI had filed the charge sheet against Kumar and three other IB officers despite Law ministry’s denial of sanction to prosecute them. Besides Kumar, who retired last year, P Mittal, MK Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede were named in the chargesheet.
CBI has alleged 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.
Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on 15 June 2004.
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