Letter to The Prime Minister in response to the letter of Shri Arun Jaitley written in respect of the fake encounters.
11th October, 2013
To,
The Prime Minister
Government of India
New Delhi.
Dear Sir,
I write to you in response to the letter dated September 27, 2013 of Shri Arun Jaitley written to you in respect of fake encounters of Sohrabuddin and others, inter alia, alleging that the Central Government is misusing the Central Bureau of Investigation to falsely implicate Shri Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat and others.
2. At the outset, I wish to make four important points, which are most germane to the letter of Shri Jaitley:
(i) Shri Jaitley painstakingly tries to argue in his letter that the CBI is a tool in the hands of the Central Government and is being used to malign Shri Narendra Modi and his Government in Gujarat. Shri Jaitely, however, forgets that it is not the Central Government which ordered the CBI investigation in these cases. In fact, it is the Supreme Court and Gujarat High Court who had ordered CBI investigation in these cases. Interestingly, the investigation of Ishrat Jahan case was transferred by the to the CBI by the order of the Gujarat High Court at the request of the Advocate General, Gujarat, and the accused police officers. Thus, no amount of trying to deflect attention towards the Central Government can take away from the fact that the most damaging testimonies and indictments of the Gujarat Government’s conduct in this case have come from its own officials.
(ii) Shri Jaitley’s laborious letter, compiling historical and convenient data in respect of all cases cited therein, has curious timing – it betrays the paranoia of his principal, Shri Narendra Modi, and is clearly pre-emptive in nature for building pressure on the CBI not to act even if material compelling action against Shri Modi comes up in the investigations.
(iii) Shri Jaitley’s laborious letter, which reads like a statement of defence in a criminal trial, is premature because Shri Narendra Modi has still not been indicted by the CBI in any case.
(iv) Most importantly, except the case of Sadiq Jamal cited by Shri Jaitely, all the cases (Sohrabudddin encounter case, Tulsiram Prajapati encounter case and Ishrat Jahan encounter case) were initially investigated by different set of officers of Gujarat State Police, and the investigation of all these cases, including Sadiq Jamal case, discloses that all the persons killed in the purported police encounters were in the prior police custody of the State police officers. Shri Jaitely conveniently forgets this fact and tries to justify these brutal cold blooded murders by presenting half-truths about the terrorist/criminal antecedents of these persons. While the jury is still out on the terrorist/criminal antecedents of the persons killed in these encounters, Shri Jaitley’s letter raises larger and more important questions. Notwithstanding the criminal antecedents of these victims:
a) Does the Gujarat Police have the right to kill these persons after taking them into custody?
b) Should Shri Narendra Modi’s Government protect rogue police officers involved in these heinous crimes by obstructing and derailing investigations?
c) Should Shri Narendra Modi use these cold blooded murders for furthering his image as ‘Loh purush’ (the iron man) or ‘Yug Purush’ (the man of time)?
d) Most importantly, will the BJP advocate and pursue the policy of killing people without subjecting them to due process of law and violate the fundamental right of ‘right to life’ guaranteed in our Constitution?
3. I do not wish to rebut the case-wise contents of Shri Jaitley’s letter because he has been very economic with the truth. In fact, he has made completely misconceived, misleading, false and absurd allegations in his letter with the sole intention of subverting the process of law. I fail to give him the benefit of doubt also because he is a renowned lawyer well conversant with criminal and constitutional law. Hence, his letter tantamount to political interference in ongoing investigations.
4. However, in an antithetical way, in fact I agree with him on the point that the CBI has been less than correct, conscientious, prompt and proper in its work. But my argument is this: The CBI has not investigated Shri Narendra Modi even though evidence warranted it; the investigations have been slow and misdirected; and, contrary to Shri Jaitely’s claims, there appears to be a willful design of the CBI of not treading on territory inconvenient to Shri Modi because he may be seen by the career conscious leadership of the CBI to be a rising star in Indian politics. Some important facts supporting the argument I made above are as follows:
(i) In Ishrat Jahan false encounter case, BJP justifies the encounters by relying on some Pak media reports and an unauthenticated and inadmissible NIA interrogation report, that Ishrat Jahan was a suicide bomber of the LeT. But, fundamentally, are the credentials and antecedents of the deceased relevant once it has been shown that the purported police encounter was false? What is worse is that the series of such fake encounters were not only guided by the IB but also supported by the Government of Gujarat.
(ii) In Sadiq Jamal case and in Ishrat Jahan case, complicity of senior IB officials, including Special Director Shri Rajinder Kumar, has clearly surfaced. The BJP and Shri Jaitley defend these officials on the pretext of national security. I am surprised: does Shri Jaitley believe it is legitimate for IB to murder people they choose?
(iii) In Ishrat case, it has transpired that Shri Amit Shah and Shri Narendra Modi may have had prior knowledge and may have given prior consent to the killing of four persons including Ishrat in a false police encounter.
(iv) The CBI has been reluctant to proceed against IB and unwilling to investigate the disclosures concerning the political executive of the State.
(v) In Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati false encounter cases, the acts on the part of Shri Amit Shah, former MoS Home of Gujarat, which are considered evidence against him, were acts approved on file by the Chief Minster Narendra Modi. If these acts of omission and commissions were considered good evidence against Shri Amit Shah by the CBI for charge-sheeting him, why does the CBI not consider them as good evidence against Shri Narendra Modi. However, the CBI has not even asked Shri Narendra Modi about it. In addition, those recently charge-sheeted, including Shri Gulab Chand Kataria (Former MoS Home, Rajasthan), have been granted anticipatory bail by the Mumbai Court in such a serious case of conspiracy to murder. This reflects very poorly on the CBI’s investigation. Moreover, there is a common thread running in all these cases: several instances of abuse of power and obstruction by the senior officers and political executive of Gujarat to delay and derail the investigation have been disclosed, but the CBI has not investigated it.
5. Most importantly, there is the case of assassination of Shri Haren Pandya, former Home Minister of Gujarat, in March 2003. While acquitting all the accused persons in this heinous crime, the High Court of Gujarat has held that the CBI investigation left much to be desired, and has gone further to hold that the real culprits have not been brought to book. Not only has the family of Shri Haren Pandya but also people in general believed this assassination to be a political murder. It is well known that Shri Haren Pandya was a detractor of Shri Narendra Modi in those turbulent times after the riots of 2002. The widow of Shri Haren Pandya has been pleading for further investigation, which in any case is called for because there are absconding accused persons yet to be arrested. Therefore, an energetic further investigation is necessary in the interest of justice. But the CBI is not doing it. What is more, the CBI has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court judgment. I believe that this appeal needs legal review on an objective and dispassionate appreciation of the errors in the previous CBI investigation that have been pointed out by the High Court.
6. Trying to protect his principal, Shri Narendra Modi, by attacking the Congress may have appeared to be a politically expedient tactic to Shri Arun Jaitley. But facts do not support his allegations. I request you, sir, to kindly impress upon the CBI to conduct a fair, legal, prompt and proper investigation in each of the cases mentioned above, irrespective of the stature or affiliation of the personalities involved.
Yours sincerely,
(Shaktisinh Gohil)
Former leader of opposition, Gujarat
