Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that the Minister of Home Affairs is conducting a probe into the circumstances under which the second affidavit and some documents in the Ishrat Jahan case have gone missing.
He held the previous UPA government responsible for a “flip-flop” in the case, saying that there was an attempt by the erstwhile central government to dilute the fact that Jahan was an LeT operative. He added that David Headley’s statement in court was only a reaffirmation of what the UPA government said in its earlier affidavit.
Former Police Commissioner of Mumbai and BJP MP Satyapal Singh claimed that he wrote to the NIA numerous times, asking for a copy of Headley’s statement, but the NIA said then Home Minister Shivraj Patil had opposed it. He alleged that a senior Congress leader called and asked him to change the entire case and reach out to the then Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi. Additionally, he said that 8 witnesses admitted in front of Satish Verma that they were pressurised to make a false statement and that the CBI tortured the forensics team.
Debate over whether Jahan was killed in a false encounter or whether she was an LeT operative came to the fore once again after David Headley, in his deposition before a Mumbai court said Ishrat Jahan Raza, the 19-year-old girl killed in 2004 was a member of the women’s wing of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The CBI had concluded that she was killed in a false encounter.
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