Ishrat inquiry panel recovers one key document

New Delhi

The one-man inquiry panel, set up to trace the missing files related to encounter killing case of Ishrat Jahan, has found one key document after examination of a few senior officers.

The panel of B K Prasad, Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry, found the copy of a letter written by the then Home Secretary G K Pillai to the then Attorney General late G E Vahanvati from the hard disk of a computer of the Home Ministry, official sources said.

The clue about the letter was received by the inquiry committee after examination of three former Joint Secretaries handling the sensitive Internal Security Division in the Home Ministry.

These officers were retired IAS officer Deverakonda Diptivilasa and serving IAS officers Dharmendra Sharma and Rakesh Singh, sources said.

A number of director, deputy secretary and under secretary-rank officers were also examined by the panel.

The inquiry panel has so far not been able to trace the other missing files related to alleged fake encounter killing of Ishrat Jahan.

The one-member panel was constituted after Home Minister Rajnath Singh had disclosed in Parliament on March 10 that the files were missing.

Following an uproar in Parliament, the ministry had asked Prasad to inquire into the circumstances in which the files related to the case of Ishrat, who was killed in an alleged fake encounter in Gujarat in 2004, went missing.

The papers, which disappeared from the Home Ministry, include the copy of an affidavit vetted by the then Attorney General and submitted in the Gujarat High Court in 2009 and the draft of the second affidavit vetted by the AG on which changes were made.

Two letters written by the then Home Secretary G K Pillai to the then Attorney General late G E Vahanvati and the copy of the draft affidavit have also so far remained untraceable.

PTI