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The Ishrat Jahan Encounter and the Indian Drama

It was 15th June, 2004. Gujarat Police gunned down four people between the Gandhinagar - Ahmedabad road. The killed were Ishrat Jahan Raza aged 19, Javed Gulam Sheikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar. Allegations were raised that the encounter was fake.

In 2004 itself, a Lahore based publication of the Lashkar e Tayyiba confirmed that Ishrat Jahan and the other three were indeed operatives. This definitely gave a jolt to many parties who were crying foul.

After three longs years, Jamaat-ud-Dawa stated that it was a 'journalistic mistake' to include the name of Ishrat Jahan and sent an apology to her family. This stirred the other folks into action. The hibernating political jumbos immediately filed a number of cases and after a long investigation, that is after 5 years, the Ahmedabad Metropolitan court declared that the encounter was staged. Important thing to note here is that it did not claim that Ishrat Jahan was innocent. Something quite damning then happened. David Headley gave some sworn testimony that Ishrat Jahan was indeed recruited as a LeT operative. This was inconvenient. So in came NIA. This new agency - why it was created nobody knows for sure. There were enough agencies for investigations anyway. In any case it was created in 2008 by the present glorious government to provide 'justice'. This very new 'investigative' agency then ruled that the testimony of Headley to FBI was hearsay and invalid! A Special Investigation Team probed into the matter and discovered that the encounter was staged. But Ishrat Jahan was not claimed as innocent. Mainly because she was politically all that important and BJP's fortunes were low anyway.

In June, 2013 - India's oldest and premier internal intelligence agency, the famous Intelligence Bureau cheif Asif Ibrahim told the Prime Minister and the Home Minister of India that the Ishrat Jahan was certainly a member of the LeT and had come with instructions to assassinate Narendra Modi and L.K. Advani.

So what is this issue all about?
Gullible public opinion is favoring Ishrat Jahan. The PR coup staged by the corrupt politicians has always paid off. The question is not if Ishrat Jahan was killed in a fake encounter. The objective of the Central Government is apparently to paint Ishrat Jahan as an innocent who was killed in cold blood by the Gujarat police. The difference of killing an innocent in a fake encounter and killing a terrorist in a fake encounter is huge. That itself is the point.

The objective is simple. The UPA government has been ruling the country for two full terms. The economy has begun collapsing. All corruption records all over the world have been broken. The communal divide is ever increasing. Wherever you look you find India is going steadily into a freefall. The Indian public opinion has shifted largely against UPA and many are looking forward to an alternative that the likes of Narendra Modi provides. The Gujarat riot probes have all hit a dead end and Narendra Modi could not be implicated inspite of everything. So how to stop his rise? Not by curbing corruption - no, that would be a silly move. Instead let's dig up old skeletons. The dusty files were cleaned and Ishrat Jahan case was brought back to life. 9 years after the encounter the babus of New Delhi have started to raise a ruckus. If it could be proved that Ishrat Jahan was innocent, Narendra Modi government of Gujarat will be damned and his aspirations for becoming PM will be dashed.

There was one small thorn. The Intelligence Bureau had stood by his reports stating that Ishrat Jahan was an LeT operative. Bang came a CBI chargesheet stating the IB has terror links! Senior IB officer Rajendra Kumar was charged.

No matter what comes out of these 'investigations' by the CBI and the government agency NSA, a few points are clear.

1. Narendra Modi's state Government will get a bad name. His so called anti Muslim bias can be portrayed openly. This will take away the air from the sails of the Opposition of the present UPA government.

2. Best case scenario for UPA - Narendra Modi will be implicated in the case and sentenced, along with his state machinery and State police personnel. In short the BJP controlled officials will be purged and replaced by the UPA supporters. Then the UPA can continue looting the nation in tens of scams and corruption cases.

India has a lot to lose if the present Government is voted back into power. In fact that is more probable. But then don't they say - "You get the leader you deserve"?

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