Ishrat Jahan was LeT operative: Headley

Testifying via video-link from the US, Headley spilled the beans on the 19-year-old Mumbra girl and picked up her name when quizzed by SPP Ujjwal Nikam about a “botched up operation” mentioned to him (Headley) by LeT commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi. 

Headley told the court that Lakhvi had told to him about a “botched-up operation” in India by another LeT operative Muzammil Butt where a female member (Ishrat Jahan) of the outfit was killed. “Earlier in the day, Headley said, “Before coming to India in Sept 2006, he received USD 25,000 from ISI’s Major Iqbal. 

“I also got 40,000 in Pakistani currency from LeT operative Sajid Mir between April and June 2008,” the LeT operative told the court, adding that Major Iqbal used to regularly send him money in instalments. 

Also, Major Iqbal gave me counterfeit Indian currency once or twice in 2008, Headley said. Besides Abdul Rehman Pasha, also from ISI, gave me Rs 80,000, Headley said.

Describing Pakistan-American terrorist David Coleman Headley’s revelation about Ishrat Jahan as vindication of its stand, the BJP on Thursday demanded an apology from senior Congress leadership for allegedly taking a stand against national security for political gains.

Slamming Congress, which has been raising questions over Ishrat Jahan’s encounter, the party spokesperson Siddhartha Nath Singh said since Headley has now spoken the truth about Ishrat Jahan, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi must tender an apology not just to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but to the nation. 

Union Minister and senior BJP leader Giriraj Singh slammed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose party leader Ali Anwar Ansari had called Ishrat “a proud daughter”, for allegedly sympathising with terrorist for political gains and demanded that he must tender an apology to the nation for it. 

Ishrat Jahan was killed along with three others in 2004 in an encounter by cops in Gujarat. The four were accused of allegedly conspiring to assassinate the then Gujarat Chief Minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi. BJP chief and then Gujarat state minister Amit Shah in Mr Modi’s cabinet has been on the target of opponents for allegedly being involved in the shootout of Ishrat Jahan, which the CBI, in its charge-sheet has said, it was “staged.” 

However, Mr Shah was later given a clean chit in the case. The encounter case of Ishrat Jahan made an echo during Bihar Polls when some of the leaders, in a bid to corner BJP, raked Ishrat Jahan encounter case and described her as “martyr” and “daughter of Bihar.”

Headley, currently lodged in a US prison, has been deposing as an approver through a video link in the November 2008 terror attacks case and had claimed that one of the Lashkar-e-Taiba top operative had told him that Ishrat Jahan was a Fidayeen bomber of the terrorist outfit.

Accusing the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre of using the statement by David Headley, that Ishrat Jahan was affiliated to the Lashkar-e-Taiba to justify her “fake” encounter in 2004, the Congress said that neither law nor the Constitution allows it. 

Talking to mediapersons , AICC spokesperson Manish Tewari said, ‘’If David Headley has made some assertions let them be investigated. If the government wants to probe whether Ishrat Jahan had links with the LeT it is free to do so.’’ 

However, the BJP and the NDA Government cannot use them to justify the “fake” encounter of Ishrat Jahan. ‘’It is notable that a trial court had ruled that the encounter of Ishrat Jahan was fake.’’