Indian court says student died in staged killing by police (Roundup)

Sep 8, 2009, 10:32 GMT

   New Delhi - A 19-year-old female student and three others were killed in a staged encounter by the police in India's western state of Gujarat in 2004, according to a judicial probe, news reports said Tuesday.

   The Gujarat police had earlier said Ishrat Jahan and three others were part of a cell of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group plotting to assassinate state Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

   Police said Jahan, a Mumbai college student, and her boyfriend Pranesh Pillai, alias Javed Sheikh, along with two alleged Pakistani nationals - Rajkumar Rana and Jishan Johar - were killed in Gujarat's capital Ahmedabad after a police chase on June 15, 2004.

   Jahan's relatives claimed she was killed by the police in a staged clash, and asked the court to investigate.

   The magisterial court ruled that the killings were staged by the police officers in order to win promotions and rewards, The Times of India newspaper reported.

The report by judge SP Tamang, excerpts of which were released to the media, said police abducted all four victims from India's financial hub Mumbai on June 12, 2004, and the post mortem report revealed that they were killed on June 14 - after which the police staged the phony chase and shootout on June 15.

   The report named 21 policemen, including then deputy inspector general of police DG Vanzara, crime branch chief PP Pandey and then-Ahmedabad police commissioner KR Kaushik, who later retired as Gujarat police chief.

   Vanzara is currently in jail facing trial in another alleged fake encounter case.

A spokesman for the state government rejected the judge's findings at a televised press briefing from the state capital Gandhinagar.

   'We don't accept the report. If tested under law it will not pass,' Gujarat Health Minister and government spokesman Jai Narayan Vyas said.

'The Ishrat encounter was not staged or fake,' Vyas insisted, and said affidavits from the federal government verified the 'terrorist links' of the victims.

   In a separate press briefing in Mumbai, Jahan's family said they welcomed the report's conclusions.

   'We knew our sister was innocent. We have belief in the laws and judicial system of the country. We want those responsible for killing our sister to get the harshest punishment according to law,' Jahan's younger sister Mushrat Jahan said.

   A three-member committee of senior bureaucrats and a police official appointed by the High Court to probe the case is scheduled to submit its report on November 30.

   Human rights groups in India have often expressed concern over staged killings by security forces and demanded more transparency.