'Congress manipulating CBI to target Modi in Ishrat case'

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday accused the Congress of misuse and manipulation of the CBI to target it in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, which it termed as a "political conspiracy".

BJP alleged the United Progressive Alliance government was playing politics on serious issues like terrorism and corruption. The opposition party said while all encounters across the country were termed as genuine by the investigating agency, only those happening in Gujarat were touted as "fake".

"The CBI is acting as a private militia of the Congress party in so far as the Ishrat Jahan case is concerned. The whole case is a political conspiracy to discredit the anti-terror machinery of central and state government," BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi told reporters. She said the high court has in its recent verdict questioned the CBI's timing of the chargesheet as to "why was the delay". "It proves political conspiracy..this is a well-hatched conspiracy," she said.

"In this case, like in several other cases, the CBI is again being misused and manipulated by the central government," she said while questioning the change of affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan case by the Intelligence Bureau.

"On whose instructions the affidavit was changed," she asked adding, "the CBI should also probe who called for a change in the affidavits. Agencies don't change their affidavits due to change of officials or ministers."

Lekhi said, "The Congress states thrive only on fake encounters. They think the whole world is like them, that's why they are targeting the Gujarat government."

"Encounters which happen in Gujarat all are to be treated as fake encounters, whereas far higher number of encounters which happen across the country are correct encounters, especially in Congress-ruled states like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. During this particular period, eight encounters took place in Gujarat out of 880 encounters happening across the country in which the highest number of 89 were in Uttar Pradesh and more than 80 in Andhra Pradesh followed by Maharashtra and other states," she said quoting national figures.

Lekhi said the BJP stands for impartial and efficient functioning of security agencies and termed as "unfortunate" the Congress party's attempt to attack opponents by "abusing" CBI. She alleged Ishrat Jahan was a known terrorist and her details were available on Jamaat-ud-Dawa website even as 26/11

Mumbai attacks mastermind David Headley had knowledge that she was a Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative.

The BJP spokesperson said the IB had sent inputs to the state and the affidavit was changed in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case by them. "We need to find out who did it," she said.

"The ministry of home affairs had in an affidavit claimed that Ishrat was a LeT terrorist, which got collaborated by David Headly’s statement and the posting on LeT website that she is a martyr. We want to know what motivated the MHA to change its own statement.

"There should be investigation as to how with the change of ministers, the affidavit of the central government has been changed. This case is similar to the coal scam where government interfered and changed the affidavit.

"Every IB report, which is wrong, has never led to any conspiracy or prosecution in the past, then why is it that this case is handpicked,” she asked.