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National MAGAZINE | JUL 15, 2013
ISHRAT JAHAN: CBI VS IB
A Proximity Too Close For ComfortPolice officials during
Rajinder Kumars time testify to his dubious stint with the IBR.K.
MISRA
Policemen in Ahmedabad, new and old, have a lot to say, though
not always on record, about Rajinder Kumar, IBstation head in
Gujarat between 2002 and 2005. All agree, however, on his proximity
to chief minister NarendraModi, something they say he never cared
to hide. His record, says R.B. Sreekumar, the then Additional
DirectorGeneral of Police (Intelligence), needs to be probed with a
fine toothcomb.
Kumar, claims Sreekumar, would frequently drop in at Gaikwad
Haveli, in the office of encounter specialist andthen DIG D.G.
Vanzara, unusual for an IB officer of his rank. The IB during
Kumars tenure, Sreekumar goes on toallege, helped Gujarat police go
shopping for victims in Mumbai, Hyderabad and elsewhere, to be then
eliminated
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in Gujarat.
How is it that most of the alleged terrorists were killed in the
early hours before dawn? Why did the encountersstop immediately
after Vanzara was arrested? Did the Gujarat police stop receiving
intelligence inputs thereafteror did the LeT and others stop
sending terrorists to Gujarat? These questions need answers,
Sreekumar saidover telephone from Kerala.
Further, the former ADGP (intelligence) claims, he did not
receive any intelligence inputs from IB during his tenure.The
central agency, he says, did not submit any actionable intelligence
before the Godhra incident or the
subsequent riots. How is it, he wonders, that there was not a
single encounter during his tenure but barely afterhe was shunted
out, the first encounter killing, of Samir Khan Pathan,
unfolded.
Unusually for an IB officer again, Kumar had reportedly
volunteered to be a witness against Sreekumar when thestate
government filed a chargesheet against him in Sep 2005.
Nor is Sreekumar the only police officer in the state to
question Kumars conduct. Retired IPS officer J aspal Singhtoo had
written to the SIT investigating the 2002 riots to look into Kumars
role.
Sreekumar also recalls how, within hours of the Godhra incident,
Kumar insisted it was a terror attack by the ISI,and urged an
investigation into the Pakistani hand. But when I inquired about
the basis of the conspiracy theory,he couldnt provide a
satisfactory explanation. I had refused to accept his advice, says
Sreekumar. Curiously,Kumar had also not sent him any report or
input on the ISI conspiracy.
Not just policemen but even others like activist Teesta Setalvad
and slain BJ P minister Haren Pandyas widowJ agruti believe Kumars
role in Gujarat to be suspect. Why, asks Setalvad, did the IB fail
to provide informationand evidence of the ISI conspiracy to the
Nanavati Shah Commission? J agruti, who has been demanding
areinvestigation into her husbands mysterious assassination on
March 26, 2003, too wonders if it was justcoincidence that her
husband was the first to be killed in a long line of killings
officially attributed to terrorists.
How is it that in the decade since then, or in the period before
that, no leader of the stature of Haren Pandya hasbeen targeted?
she asks. Both the IB and the CBI, she alleges, colluded in 2003 to
cover up the intelligencefailure and the complicity of officials
and politicians, which she believes led to her husbands
assassination. Whyis it that the chief minister, who now calls CBI
names and is against it reinvestigating the case, accepted
itsshoddy investigation which led to all the 12 accused being let
off for lack of evidence? The CBI had, in fact,admitted on record
that it had misplaced Pandyas cellphone call records. In the
absence of such vital evidence,
how could they complete the investigation, she asks. The swirl
of such questions continues to rise.
By R.K. Misra in Gandhinagar
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