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Journalism of Courage
Under pressure to establish the terror link that led to the gunning down of Mumbra undergraduate Ishrat Jehan and Pune electrician Javed, Gujarat police may have finally managed to complete the circuit. Their key witness now is 26-year-old Rashid Ansari, another Mumbra resident, who told The Indian Express that he personally escorted Ishrat and her mother to Javed.
Ansari, an electrician like Javed, has been arrested by the Gujarat police and taken to Ahmedabad. But before that, on June 23, as he paced outside the Thane Crime Branch after being picked up, he said he knew Javed was upto something illegal. ‘‘I had no idea it was terrorism,’’ he told this newspaper.
Javed and Ishrat, along with two men said to be Pakistanis, were gunned down earlier this month and the Gujarat police claimed they were on a mission to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Ishrat’s mother Shamimbanu, after first acknowledging that her daughter had accompanied Javed on a couple of trips, now insists that the family did not know Javed at all. That, according to Ansari, is not true.
He claims he was with the mother and daughter when they met Javed.
‘‘Javed has been in touch with me since April and recently asked me to send a message to the Ishrat family,’’ he said. Police sources say Ansari’s statement strengthens the theory that Ishrat and Ansari—both from very poor families—were used shrewdly by Javed.
Ansari says that he accompanied Ishrat and her mother to Tyaloja on May 1. Javed, who had relayed his instructions over telephone, was waiting for them. ‘‘That was the only time the mother accompanied her,’’ said Ansari.
The following day, Ansari took Ishrat to Pune, where Javed told her he dealt in foreign currency and gold.
‘‘Javed said he wanted Ishrat to play his wife on trips. That was when I realised Javed was using her as a cover,’’ Ansari said. He added that Javed paid Ishrat Rs 2,000 and also loaned him Rs 5,000. They returned from Pune the same day, but with instructions that Ansari should bring Ishrat to the eastern Mumbai suburb of Kalamboli.
Accordingly, seven or eight days later, he picked her from Kalyanphata, a 30-minute drive from Mumbra.
It was the third time Ansari had escorted Ishrat to meet Javed. It would be the last.
What Gujarat Police have:
• On Wednesday night, the Gujarat police team returned to Ahmedabad after taking custody of Rashid Ansari, Parvej Khan and Shivram Chaudhary
• Ansari is believed to have escorted Ishrat to meet Javed at Taloja and then at Pune
• Parvej Khan arranged for Javed’s stay in Mumbra
• Shivram Chaudhary, a resident of Hashmat Park, the building where Ishrat’s family rents a flat, had on a couple of occasions passed on Javed’s messages to Ishrat
