Ishrat Jahan encounter: Board of experts misinterpreted parameters,says SIT

“They (Medical Experts) wrongly stated that the body of Amjad Ali was 20 feet behind the Indica car whereas the record clearly mentioned it to be 12 feet,and even though the correct position was shown to the board during reconstruction.

“They disregarded the recorded positions of the police officers while firing and relied on the improved position that the police officers showed to the board,” the complaint said.

Based on the complaint of the SIT,the CBI registered an FIR in Navi Mumbai to conduct a probe into the case.

When contacted,Dr Dogra refused to comment on the finding of the SIT and said their observations were based on findings of probe team.

“However,the SIT findings are unfortunate,” Dr Dogra said.

The SIT had alleged that the two illustrations of the “Board’s lack of scientific application were most glaring” which included that the car in which the deceased were travelling would have dragged to right when its left rear tyre suddenly burst.

“The SIT provided them with authenticated research paper on this topic by the Mechanical engineering department of University of California at Berkeley,US. This research paper,duly,published in an international academic journal,concluded the opposite.

“However,despite SIT’s request to them for revisiting their earlier opinion,they evaded the issue,” it said.

The SIT said in response to a query,the Board gave a surprising opinion that the backrest of a car could go further backwards if the car stopped suddenly.

It said as per the terms of reference,the Board of Experts was not required to do any primary examination of exhibits that was done in earlier phases of investigations.

“The Board’s limited work was to reconstruct the scene and represent it through animation or graphics and to clarify such doubts as may exist regarding the earlier expert opinion,” the SIT report said.

Ishrat,a 19-year-old college girl from Mumbra in Thane district in Maharashtra and three others — Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Gopinath Pillai,Amjad Ali Rana and Jeeshan Johar — were killed in an encounter on the outskirts of the city on June 15,2004.

The CBI registered a case against 19 people including then Commissioner K R Koushik,then Joint Commissioner of Police P P Pande,then DCP D G Vanzara,then Additional CP Narendra Amin and then joint CP Amin.

Others include J J Parmar,V D Vaanar,Gawat,C J Goswami,P G Waghela,Tarun Baruth,R I Patel,D G Swami,I K Choudhry,K N Vaghela,D G Goswami,Mohan Bhai Nonjibhai,Bhaala Bhai and K S Desai.

All accused have been booked for murder,kidnapping,conspiracy and destruction of evidence.

Ishrat’s mother Shamima Kausar,who visited CBI office in Navi Mumbai for collecting FIR,said she was getting positive response from CBI and she feels that the probe is now going in proper direction. She urged the CBI to punish all the guilty of whichever rank and,however,powerful.

“The accused who have been named in the FIR are the ones who murdered my daughter. But they were ordered to do so by someone else. CBI should book those persons too,” she said.