New Delhi: Gujarat government on Tuesday slammed Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, a day after he told CNN-IBN that Narendra Modi's government had misused the Centre's affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan fake-encounter case.
Gujarat Health & Family Welfare and Tourism Minister Jai Narayan Vyas told CNN-IBN that Centre's affidavit was used to just highlight the background of Ishrat Jahan and her friends.
"Is Chidambaram pronouncing a judgment even before it is written? What right he has got? Is this not contempt of court? We quoted Central government affidavit just to highlight the background of the people being discussed. If you want to shelter or prefer terrorist activities over the security and safety of civilians then god be with the Union Home Minister," said Vyas
In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai on Monday, Chidambaram had launched his strongest attack yet on the Modi government, accusing it of misusing a Central Government affidavit to defend itself in the fake encounter case.
"In my opinion the affidavit could have been confined to two pages. It simply says this is the intelligence input we have in this case. We have shared it. We are not responsible for action taken by the state government thereafter. It should have been confined to a couple of paragraphs," said Chidambaram.
When asked if there was a mistake in drafting the affidavit, Chidambaram replied, "No drafting mistake. It was mischievously used by the Gujarat government as a shield against an inquiry into a fake encounter case. Whether there was a encounter and whether it was fake or not is a matter for the inquiry to reveal. Gujarat government should have defended itself in the fake encounter case…to use a central govt affidavit to defend itself, in my opinion that was pathetic."
Nineteen-year-old Ishrat and three others were gunned down by a Gujarat Police team allegedly in a fake encounter in June 2004. The police team led by DG Vanzara claimed that the four people were Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists and had been planning to to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
A report by Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate SP Tamang on September 7 said that Ishrat and her friends were killed in a fake encounter.
But the Gujarat High Court stayed action based on the report after Ishrat's mother moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court stay on action to be taken based on Tamang report.
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