CBI fails to establish identity of 2 slain men

Despite sending a team to Jammu and Kashmir, the CBI has failed to make any progress in establishing the identities of Amjad Ali Rana and Jishan Johar, who were killed along with Ishrat Jahan in an encounter by the Gujarat cops on the outskirts of Ahemedabad on June 15, 2004. The agency is preparing to file its first supplementary chargesheet in the case by October 15. Sources said, “The agency sleuths are still gathering information to ascertain the identity of Amjad Ali and Jishan Johar. It is true that the CBI officials, who recently visited J&K, did not get any credible information on the identities of the two deceased”. The Gujarat police had claimed in its FIR that Rana and Johar were actually Pakistani citizens who had come to India to eliminate certain VIPs of the state. The CBI in the Ishrat Jahan case’s preliminary chargesheet, filed before a city court in Ahmedabad on July 13, neither gave any details about the antecedents of the duo nor the motive of their presence in Gujarat. The agency on July 14 had also announced a cash reward of '5 lakh for anyone who gives credible information on the identities of Rana and Johar. The CBI also published an advertisement in Urdu dailies of J&K with photographs of Johar and Rana. Besides, the agency sent a team to J&K to get in touch with individuals who may have come in contact with them. The CBI investigations conclusively proved that Ishrat and three others — Amjad Ali, Jishan Johar and Javed Sheikh — were detained at a farmhouse at least three days before they were killed. The CBI also stated that “weapons planted on the four victims” were supplied by the regional unit of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and were procured from their office on directions of accused Gujarat cops.