Ishrat Jahan encounter: CBI arrests Gujarat police officer

The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested Gujarat police officer G L Singhal in connection with the alleged fake encounter of 19-year old student Ishrat Jahan by a team of Ahmedabad crime branch officers in 2004.

CBI sources said Singhal, an inducted Indian Police Service officer, who was then assistant commissioner of police crime branch, was arrested by the agency in Ahmedabad and searches are going on at his residential and official premises.

The CBI in its FIR has alleged that Singhal who is now the superintendent of police at state crime records bureau played an active role in the encounter, which was later found to be fake by the Special Investigation Team constituted by the Gujarat high court.

Jahan along with three others -- Javed Sheikh, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana -- were killed by a team of Ahmedabad city crime branch officers on an empty road stretch between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar on June 15, 2004.

After Jahan's mother complained about the alleged fake encounter, the Gujarat high court constituted a Special Investigation Team, which concluded that encounter was fake.

Following the report, the HC handed over the matter to the CBI and is monitoring the investigations.

The court had asked the agency to submit a progress report by March 15.