Ishrat Jahan case: When the IB stopped reporting to the government

Bengaluru, Feb 12: Two premier agencies of the country were at loggerheads, thanks to the Ishrat Jahan case!

It was probably one of the worst scenarios in the country when the CBI was asked to take over the probe into the Ishrat Jahan case. [Headley's Ishrat revelation: What difference will it make to the CBI case?]

The problem began when the CBI began probing Rajinder Kumar a senior intelligence bureau officer on the allegations that he had stage managed that encounter and even provided arms to the cops to carry the shoot out. [Day 5 Updates: ISI happy with Headley's efforts]

Ishrat Jahan along with Amjad Ali Rana, Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Shaikh and Jishan were killed in an encounter near Ahmedabad on June 15 2004. There were allegations that the encounter was fake. Further it was said that an innocent girl had been killed.

A deep divide that set a bad precedent:

It was a very bad precedent that had been set in this case. The IB and the CBI was completely divided. The Intelligence Bureau in particular was unhappy that the CBI was targeting their officer who had only provided information.

The IB felt that its job was to pass on information of threats and it is for the police to act upon it.

The Intelligence Bureau also felt that if its officers are going to be prosecuted for passing on information then it would be very difficult to work. However the worst scenario was when many officers in the Intelligence Bureau decided to stop passing on information to the government.

There was a time when the government was not getting any information from the IB and this was seen as a mark of protest.

Many officers in the agency say that this was probably one of the worst things that could have happened. If two premier agencies of the country that is the IB and the CBI are at logger heads, then national security does get compromised.

The IB officials enjoy a certain amount of immunity. The CBI ought not to have jumped the gun on the issue.

Officers say that while many termed Ishrat Jahan as innocent, there was no such thing being said about the rest of the persons who were with her. None had disputed that the rest of them were terrorists.

This called for an explanation as to what she was doing with them, but this question was not answered. Further while the CBI had termed the encounter as fake, it did not even go into the key point whether Ishrat was a terrorist or not.

OneIndia News