‘DySP Tarun Barot brought AK-56 to Ishrat encounter site’

Barot is already in jail in connection with Sadiq Jamal Mehtar encounter case.

According to the CBI chargesheet in the Ishrat case,“Barot fired three rounds from the weapon of I K Chauhan (police inspector ) while commando Mohan Kalsawa fired another 10 rounds from weapon of Mohan Nanji Menat.”

The CBI probe has disclosed that it was decided at the June 14,2004 meeting called by D G Vanzara at Crime Branch headquarters that gunmen of P P Pandey and Vanzara,namely Menat and Kalsawa,respectively,would be used to carry out the operation. However,at the scene of crime,Kalsawa fired 10 rounds from Menat’s weapon. Kalsawa,who was not chargesheeted,died in 2007.

The encounter lasted an hour,from 4 am to 5 am.

The CBI has made these claims on the basis of statements of several policemen who are shown in the chargesheet as witnesses but were named as accused in the FIR filed by the agency earlier on the basis of findings of Gujarat High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team. These include the then sub-inspector B A Patel,then police inspector K M Vaghela,retired police inspector P G Vaghela and retired DySP Vakhastsinh Vanar,among others.

The CBI chargesheet names 179 witnesses on record,including the deputy secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs who first filed an affidavit in the Gujarat High Court in 2009 affirming that all the four killed in the encounter were terrorists,but later retracted in another affidavit filed the same year.

Among the witnesses who statements have been recorded are people from Faizabad and Lucknow (UP),Mumbra and Pune in Maharashtra and Kerala.

The CBI has also put several professors from Ahmedabad’s LD Civil Engineering College and Gujarat Arts and Science College as witnesses on record though their statements have not been recorded.

Two officials of Dena Bank in Gandhinagar are also witnesses but their statements have not been recorded.