Statement of Sheikh’s wife under lens

The most startling part in Sajida’s statement,according to sources,is where she has reportedly said that Javed was shown photographs and videos of the 2002 riots on one of his visits to the Middle East in 2003-04. Javed used to go to Saudi Arabia often for his perfume business,they said.

Sajida had reportedly given a lengthy statement to the SIT that she was aware of Javed and Ishrat’s whereabouts whenever the two were “together”.

Sajida,who had claimed before the police of Ahmedabad (in 2005),Pune and Mumbai that she had never seen Ishrat,had told the SIT that Javed used to take Ishrat to various places in Maharashtra and even Uttar Pradesh before they were killed,sources said,adding,she confirmed that Javed used to run a perfume business in Pune where Ishrat was an accountant-cum-secretary.

A senior CBI officer said,“Sajida’s statements have opened more loopholes in the case. It is really strange for a wife to give such statements to the police about her husband (Javed) having connections in Gulf countries where he was shown provocative videos and he is believed to have met some notorious elements too. She has also claimed that Javed did have cases of criminal offenses against him.”

The CBI team,which has finished investigations in Mumbai,Pune,Kerela and Ibrahimpur (UP),is likely to visit Pune again to verify Sajida’s statements.

Sources said Sajida’s statements create more doubts about the circumstances under which she gave the statements and their authenticity,because she had first refused to talk to the police saying she knew nothing. Interestingly,SIT chairman RR Verma’s final report before the HC had no mention of her statements.

The SIT had established that the encounter was “not genuine”,said sources,on the basis of ballistics,forensics,old records,statements of their families and suspects,but it couldn’t ascertain who Ishrat and Javed really were.

CBI officials said Sajida’s statements had been a bone of contention in the SIT that had left the most crucial point of investigations,i.e.,establishing identities of the deceased,incomplete.

SIT’s Verma,IPS officer Satish Verma and Mohan Jha had gone to Pune last year to record Sajida’s statements after she repeatedly refused to come to Gujarat.

“Sajida’s statements could be out of anger or frustration or even revenge. But if that was the case she wouldn’t have been playing the hide and seek with SIT for long. She had taken a clear stand that she knew nothing about Ishrat but said all these in the last stages of investigation,” added the CBI officer.

Sajida had married Javed in 1994.

Ishrat,Javed and two alleged Pakistani nationals,Amjad Ali Rana and Jishan Johar,were killed in an “encounter” with police on June 15,2004 in Ahmedabad.