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Ishrat Jahan was a Lashkar suicide bomber, David Headley tells court

Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan was killed in an encounter by Gujarat police in 2004.

Mumbai: Deposing before a Mumbai court on Thursday, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley said that Ishrat Jahan, 19-year-old Mumbai student killed in an encounter by Gujarat police in 2004, was a Lashkar-e-Taiba suicide bomber.

Headley said that there is a femals wing in the LeT and one Abu Aiman's mother headed it.

He claimed that the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi told him about a botched up operation of former LeT operative Muzammil Bhatt in India.

"The operation was about shooting the police at some naka. One woman LeT named Ishrat Jahan was involved. Muzammil Bhatt was the head of our group before Sajid Mir," he told the court.

Read: All you need to know about Ishrat Jahan ‘fake’ encounter case

He told the court that a person, whom he identified as Abu Dujuna, introduced him to Muzammil. Headley said that he and Muzammil had once visited Kashmir to fight against the Indian troops.

Ishrat Jahan, her friend Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh along with two suspected Pakistanis -- Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar -- were gunned down by Gujarat crime branch officials on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2004.

Police officials claimed that they were LeT terrorists who had planned to kill the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Ishrat Jahan encounterIshrat Jahan, from Mumbra near Mumbai, Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. (Photo: PTI)

An investigation was launched into the case after allegations that Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter and in 2009 an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged.

Read: People who supported Ishrat Jahan must take back their statements: BJP

The Gujarat government challenged the decision in the High Court, saying that the accused policemen were not given an opportunity to present their side of the arguments.

The CBI, which took over probe from the Gujarat High Court appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT), had filed chargesheet in August 2013 saying that the encounter was fake and executed in a joint operation by the city crime branch and Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB).

The CBI had accused Gujarat police of staging the encounter in a joint operation with the state's intelligence bureau.

The CBI had said that Ishrat and others were in the custody of Gujarat Police before being killed and, in fact, she and Javed had been interrogated at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Ahmedabad where they were kept in confinement.

All four were taken to the encounter spot near Kotarpur Waterworks blind-folded before being shot dead in cold blood, CBI had said.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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