On 15 June 2004, officers of the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch and members of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) of Ahmedabad shot and killed four people. Those killed in the incident were Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year-old woman from Mumbra, Maharashtra, and Javed Ghulam Sheikh (born Pranesh Pillai), along with two Pakistani infiltrators Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar. The Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) made allegations about the entire operation being an instance of "encounter killing". The state agencies and police claimed that Ishrat Jahan and her associates were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives involved in a plot to assassinate the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi.
After the incident, an investigation was launched based on allegations that the description of the incident by the police was false and the killings were deliberate and unlawful. The police team involved in the incident had been led by DIG D.G. Vanjara, an officer who spent eight years in jail for his alleged involvement in the extrajudicial killing of another person, Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Five years later, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged. The decision was challenged by the state government and taken to the Gujarat High Court. After further investigation, in 2011, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) told the High Court that the encounter was not genuine, and the victims were killed prior to the date of the staged encounter. On 3 July 2013, the CBI filed its first chargesheet in an Ahmedabad court saying that the shooting was a staged encounter carried out in cold blood.
Although the question of whether the killings were an illegal staged event or not is separate from whether the people who were killed were working for the LeT, the family of Ishrat Jahan and several politicians and activists have maintained that she was innocent, and that question has continued to be disputed. The CBI declared that the encounter was staged, but did not comment on whether Ishrat Jahan was an LeT associate or not.
In 2004, the Lahore-based publication Ghazwa Times quoted someone from Jamaat-ud-Dawah, the political arm of the LeT, as saying that Ishrat and her companions were LeT "activists". However, in 2007, Jamaat-ud-Dawa retracted the statement as a "journalistic mistake" and offered an apology to Ishrat's family. No explanation was given as to why the previous statement was retracted after three years. In 2010, some media outlets reported that the convicted terrorist David Headley had implicated Ishrat in terrorist activities in a statement given to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The NIA called these reports "baseless", and the CBI said that this assertion was fabricated by the IPS officer Rajendra Kumar, who is one of the suspects in the case. In June 2013, the Intelligence Bureau chief Asif Ibrahim told the Office of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister of India that the Bureau had enough evidence to prove that Ishrat was a part of an LeT module which planned to kill Narendra Modi and the former Deputy Prime Minister of India, Lal Krishna Advani. In February 2016, Headley testified before a Mumbai court, via video from the US, that Ishrat Jahan was a member of Laskhar-e-Taiba.
The people killed in the incident Amjad Ali Rana Amjad Ali Rana, also known as Amjadali Akbarali Rana, Akbar or Salim, was according to Indian sources from Haveli Deewan (Haveli Diwan) village in the Bhalwal Tehsil of Pakistan. However, a later report by the metropolitan magistrate SP Tamang stated Rana's identity card, along with that of suspect Zeeshan, was forged by the police and the two men were Indian citizens. According to the CBI chargesheet, he told the Gujarat Police that he was planning to commit a terrorist act in Ahmedabad. The CBI also said that he was abducted by the Gujarat Police and IB officials from Gota on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. He was found dead with an AK-56 rifle near his body, which according to CBI, was planted by the police officials. Amjad is believed to have met Javed several times in Oman, and also Javed and Ishrat in Ibrahimpur once.
Ishrat Jahan Raza Ishrat Jahan Raza (1985 – 15 June 2004) was a second year Bachelor of Science student at Mumbai's Guru Nanak Khalsa College. She was the second of seven siblings. Her lower-middle-class family, hailing from Bihar, lived in the Rashid compound in the Muslim-dominated area of Mumbra, Maharashtra. Ishrat's father, Mohammad Shamim Raza, had been the proprietor of a Mumbai-based construction company called Asian Constructions and her mother Shamima worked for a long time at a medicine packaging company in Vashi. However, her father died two years before the incident. To cover expenses after her father's death, Ishrat worked as a private tutor for children and did embroidery work to support her family. She also worked for Javed Sheikh ( Pranesh Pillai) as a secretary handling his accounts. Javed used to take her out of town at times on work.
David Headley, who conspired with the Lashkar-e-Taiba in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks, later said during FBI interrogation that Ishrat Jahan was a "Fidayeen" (sacrificial aspirant) working for someone named Muzammil Bhat (or Muzammil Butt). Republished 11 February 2016. Headley also said during interrogation by the NIA that she had been targeting the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Modi, and was working with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
In March 2016, Headley claimed he had told NIA that about Jahan among other things, but could not say why they weren't recorded by the agency. However, he went back on part of his statement that LeT chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi had told him that "Ishrat Jahan module" was a botched operation, adding that he had no personal knowledge about her. He also stated that he learned about her from the media.
Javed Ghulam Sheikh (born Pranesh Pillai) Pranesh Pillai, later known as Javed Ghulam Sheikh, was the son of Gopinatha Pillai, a native of Noornad in Kerala. He had married in 1994 and had three children. He had migrated to Mumbra in Mumbai after marrying. Before his death, he had been booked for four assault cases in Mumbai and Pune, and had also been charged with involvement in a fake currency racket. Pranesh Pillai converted to Islam and changed his name in 1991 to Javed Sheikh to marry a Muslim woman called Sajida. Gujarat Police recovered two passports from Javed: one obtained using his original name Pranesh and a second one in his new name.
Jahan's family first met Javed Sheikh two months before her death. He had taken Ishrat to Nasik, Bangalore and Lucknow, where he is believed to have met Amjad. Javed Sheikh travelled to Dubai in 2003 and to Oman in 2004. His wife Sajida said he came back indoctrinated from 2003 Dubai visit.
Zeeshan Johar Zeeshan Johar (variously spelt Jisan Johar, Jishan Johar), also known as Abdul Ghani or Janbaaz, belonged to Gujranwala in Pakistan. Johar had reportedly been arrested in a trespassing case in Srinagar in 2003, along with Amjad. No one claimed the bodies of Amjad and Zeeshan after their death. An identity card with a Pakistan address was reportedly recovered from Zeeshan Johar's body. However, a later report by the metropolitan magistrate SP Tamang stated that identity cards were forged by the police and the two men were Indian citizens.
The accused officers Police officers accused in the case included Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay G. Vanzara and Assistant Commissioner of the Police Crime Branch Girish Laxman Singhal. SIB officers accused in the case include Special Director Rajinder Kumar, Assistant Director M. K. Sinha, Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajeev Wankhede, and officer T. Mittal.
The encounter In February 2004, J&K Police had shot dead Ehsan Illahi, an LeT terrorist. The IB-led operation that followed, gathered intelligence about Javed Sheikh's plans and lured him to Ahmedabad where Gujarat Police awaited the arrival of his car.
Jahan had left her house on 11 June 2004, four days before she was killed. According to her brother, their mother Shameema did not like her going out of town with Javed. Therefore, she did not inform her mother when she left for Nashik. Jahan made a phone call to her mother on 11 June and spoke with her. According to her mother, she had called from a public phone booth outside a Nashik bus stop, and told her that "Uncle Javed Sheikh hasn't come yet." Jahan's mother said that a few minutes later, Jahan made a second call and said in a terrified voice that Javed had come but with some "strange men", and then hung abruptly.
On 15 June 2004, the Gujarat police stated that Ishrat, along with three other people, had been gunned down near Ahmedabad by a police team belonging to the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of the Ahmedabad City Police. The four were allegedly killed after the police chased their blue Tata Indica car. It is not clear how the four wound up in Gujarat from Maharashtra.
The police claimed that all four were connected with the Pakistan-based terror group LeT and were in Gujarat to assassinate Narendra Modi, in order to avenge the communal riots of 2002 in which more than 1000 people were killed. The police team was led by then Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay G. Vanzara, who was later jailed for involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter killing.
Allegations On 15 July 2004, news outlets such as The Indian Express, The Times of India, Rediff.com, and Outlook carried news reports that "the Lahore-based Ghazwa Times, mouthpiece of the Lashkar-e-Taiba" had acknowledged Ishrat Jahan as a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative. According to these news reports, the Ghazwa Times had published an article on the "Jamat-ul-Dawa" [sic] website stating that "the veil of Ishrat Jahan, a woman activist of LeT, was removed by Indian police and her body was kept with other mujahideens (terrorists) on the ground", and that "Ishrat was with her husband, sitting on the front seat of the car". In June 2007, the Business Standard reported that the "global terror group Lashkar-e-Taiyba" had apologised to Indian Muslims on 2 May 2007 on the Jamaat-ud-Dawah's website "for causing them problems due to an inadvertent mistake", with the article implying that mistake in question was the claim that "Ishrat Jehan Reza had been a Lashkar operative".
The media reports were subsequently used by the Government of India in its 2009 affidavit as evidence of Ishrat Jahan's links with the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Between July 2004 and August 2004, the website of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah carried a notice disclaiming knowledge of "the young girl Ishrat Jahan Araa" (sic), claiming that the Indian media had fabricated news about Ishrat Jahan's links to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. On 2 May 2007, Abdullah Muntazir, spokesperson of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah Pakistan, apologised to Ishrat Jahan's family and to all Indian Muslims for the journalistic mistake by his staff of quoting Indian news sites without proper attribution, which had enabled Indian media to claim that Ishrat Jahan had been a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative. He claimed the Jamaat-ud-Dawah had "published a vehement denial", but that the "damage had already been done".
A probe into the encounter was ordered after Ishrat Jahan's family insisted she was innocent. The Mumbai police said she had no criminal background and their investigation did not find anything that could implicate her. A number of politicians and the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission demanded an inquiry. Ishrat Jahan's funeral procession was attended by over 10,000 people in Mumbra and the Samajwadi Party state president Abu Azmi said that he would demand a CBI probe into the killings.