Petitioner in Ishrat Jahan case dies in road accident at Kerala, police probes all angles

A petitioner in the Ishrat Jahan case died in a road accident in Kerala. Gopinath Pillai the father of Pranesh Kumar Pillai who along with Ishrat Jahan and two others was shot dead in Gujarat in 2004 met with an accident on Friday.

Gopinath Pillai, a retired teacher, was on his way to Kochi for a medical check-up on Wednesday morning when his Maruti car reportedly braked suddenly and was rear-ended by a truck.

He was rushed to hospital with multiple injuries. However he passed away in hospital. The police which has registered a case said that it was probing all angles into the case.

Ishrat Jahan, a 19-year-old college student, Pranesh and the two others were shot dead near Ahmedabad in June, 2004. Gujarat police officers claimed that the four were Lashkar e Taiba terrorists who had planned to assassinate Narendra Modi, who was then Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Pillai had challenged this in court and demanded a CBI probe. The police said that Pranesh had changed his name to Javed Sheikh to marry a Muslim woman.