New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dared the government to arrest him in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, according to sources. Sources say that Modi indirectly warned the government not to misuse the CBI.
In fact, Modi also tweeted, "Unfortunate that in its quest to target political opponents, Centre is undermining intelligence systems with CBI questioning IB officials. I objected the misuse of central agencies against political opponents. It weakens the agencies & compromises fight against terror & Maoism. (sic)"
This comes a day after BJP leader Arun Jaitley accused the government of 'destroying institutions'. Jaitley on Tuesday said that the cost of its "Modi-phobia" would be paid by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in the case of the alleged killing of Ishrat Jahan.
In an article on the party's website on Tuesday, Jaitley said there were news reports that the CBI has been interrogating senior officers of the IB in the case of alleged killing of Jahan.
"The cost of the Modi-phobia will now be paid by the IB. Its senior officials will be grilled. They will be asked details of their intelligence collection methodologies. They could be questioned on the legalities of the means deployed by them to collect intelligence," Jaitley said.
Jaitley, the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, questioned the evidence in cases instituted against BJP leaders. "In all these cases, political leaders targeted were released on bail. Regimes are not immortal. I hope one day a commission of inquiry will investigate the functioning of the CBI, its politicisation and all these above cases," he said.
Jaitley said media reports and court documents reveal that the IB had received information that a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) module was active in western India in 2004 to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narender Modi. He said that the IB had alerted Gujarat Police in accordance with its practice.
"It can be safely presumed that the central intelligence agency was a part of the operation in which the four activists of the module were intercepted and killed in an encounter with the police and security agencies," Jaitley said.
Jaitley said a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in the Gujarat High Court by Jahan's mother. In its affidavit, the government of India strongly contested the petition. Jaitley said Pakistani American terrorist David Headley, a mastermind of 26/11 carnage at Mumbai, is believed to have told his interrogators that Jahan was a key LeT operative.
He said LeT, in its mouth-piece 'Ghazwa Times', had admitted to Jahan being an LeT activist and paid homage to her martyrdom but later disowned its statement. He said IB would be asked by the CBI about authenticity of the intelligence and motives could be attributed to it.
"Only Pakistan and LeT would have the last laugh. The myopic political regime in Delhi has not realised the significance of destroying institutions. Harass the Gujarat government even if it means destroying India's security apparatus, the object of the Congress party is clear," Jaitley said.
"The introduction of the name of the former Home Minister of Gujarat in two cases was based on negligible evidence. When the director of prosecution commented upon inadequacy of the evidence the file noting shows that the senior CBI officials commented that the addition of Amit Shah as an accused was necessary if CBI was to reach the chief Minister," he said.
(With additional information from PTI)
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