Zee Media Bureau
Ahmedabad: CBI on Saturday questioned suspended IPS officer PP Pandey in connection with the alleged 2003 fake encounter of Sadiq Jamal.
Earlier CBI had questioned former Special Director of Intelligence Bureau Sudhir Kumar in connection with the same case.
Special CBI judge Gita Gopi had also accepted the investigation agency's application and given a go-ahead to interrogation of the suspended IPS officer in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. Pandey is currently lodged in judicial custody.
Pandey's lawyers had demanded that he be interrogated in his presence, which was also accepted by the court.
Pandey's interrogation has been granted by the Special CBI judge, within visible distance of his advocate.
Pandey, who was absconding for a long period, had surrendered before a CBI court in July after the apex court declined anticipatory bail to him.
Sudhir Kumar is third IB officer after Rajinder Kumar, another Special Director of the intelligence agency, to be questioned in connection with the Sadiq Jamal case.
The input given by Kumar was in connection with the alleged reason behind the killing of Jamal, a resident of Bhavnagar city, by a team of Gujarat crime branch in an encounter near Galaxy Cinema on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on January 13, 2003.
Kumar was posted as Special Director of Intelligence Bureau when this incident took place.
Kumar's role, who was handling Western Zone in the Intelligence Bureau at the agency headquarters, was under scanner of the agency for the alert that Jamal was a terrorist on a mission to eliminate VIPs in Gujarat.
CBI has already questioned a Maharashtra cadre officer of the rank of Joint Secretary twice before summoning Sudhir Kumar and Rajendra Kumar.
Jamal's brother Shabir has sought further investigation into the alleged role played by then Joint Director (IB) Rajendra Kumar, former Gujarat Minister of State (MoS) for Home and the Chief Minister in the encounter case.
At that time, the Gujarat Police had claimed that he was a terrorist who entered the city to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia, a claim similar to that made regarding the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.
With agency inputs
First Published: Saturday, October 5, 2013, 19:59
