3 of the most heinous offences defined in the Indian Penal Code are Abduction, Abduction for Murder and Murder itself. If one scrutinizes the evidence collected by CBI in the charge sheet they filed on July 3rd 2013 in the Javed-Ishrat fake encounter case, the 3000 pages are replete with credible evidence which make it abundantly clear that the master mind of this entire conspiracy is Shri Rajinder Kumar.

What is shocking however is that while his name is all over the charge sheets papers, his name is strangely missing from the list of accused. In atleast 6 sworn statements before the magistrate under the Section 164 of CrPC,  police officers of the crime branch of Ahmedabad city tell the whole story of the involvement of the IB officials namely T Mittal, MK Sinha, Rajeev Wankhede led by their joint director Shri Rajinder Kumar.

Shri CJ Goswami, the then PSI has sworn that the involvement of the IB officers in abducting the so called terrorists started way back in April 2004 when one Shri Jeeshan was kept in a house in Gota Housing Board, Ahmedabad.

Shri CA Barot, the driver of Tarun Barot who was actually present at the Vasad toll naka on June 12 2004 and was a witness to the abduction of Javed and Ishrat and had in fact driven  Tarun Barot back to Khodiyar farm on SG Highway near Vaishnodevi temple from Vasad. He has stated in his sworn statement that:

“At around 12:30-01:00 p.m. a blue Indica car was stopped by Shri Amin, Shri Barot and their policemen. One Shri MK Sinha of SIB had also come there with another person in his white Maruti 800 car. These officers had taken a girl and a man from the blue Indica car and put them in white Maruti 800 of Shri MK Sinha….”

Shri Kalubhai Desai who was at that time present in the Khodiyar farm had seen Javed and Ishrat being brought in the white Maruti 800 car and he has sworn in his 164 statement that Shri DG Vanzara, Shri Rajinder Kumar and Shri Vanzara had interrogated the suspects during his duty time.

Another PI Shri RI Patel has also sworn an affidavit, pointing out that he had seen Rajinder Kumar go to Arham Farm where another person, Amjad Ali, had been abducted and detained. After detaining him on 26th of May, NK Amin, DG Vanzara and Rajinder Kumar interrogated him (an euphimism for torture) till he couldn’t walk and co-erced him to agree that he had come from Pakistan in order to commit an offence in a crowded area of Ahmedabad. This became the basis for the first intelligence input of the Joint Director of IB Rajinder Kumar, communicated to the Police Commissioner on the 1st of June 2004.

And then comes the affidavit of DH Goswami who in no uncertain terms states that on 13.06.2004 when he and GL Singhal went to the crime branch office at Shahibaug he saw Vanzara, Rajinder Kumar and PP Pandey discussing the operation. In his presence Rajinder Kumar had asked DG Vanzara to talk to the chief minister. Mr Goswami further states that on 14.6.2004 when he had once again gone to the same shahibaug office at noon, Vanzara had told him that he already had the approval of the chief minister and the minister of home.Shri KM Vaghela, another PI, has given his statement before the CBI that he had also gone to the crime branch office at Shahibaug on 14th june at 11 p.m. and at that time he had gone into the chamber of Shri Vanzara to plead on behalf of Singhal to let Ishrat go, but Vanzara refused stating that everything had already been decided the day before with Shri PP Pandey and Shri Rajinder Kumar and that they had already gotten the green signal from kali dadhi and safed dadhi, referring to the code names they have for Shri Amit Shah and Shri Narendra Modi.

As if all these statements are not enough, Shri BA Patel unamibugously states that on 14.06.2004 morning Shri GL Singhal had asked him to go to the SIB office Bungalow no 31 Shahibaug. There Shri Rajinder Kumar had met Singhal and had handed over one AK 56 rifle, ammunitions, magazines, two pistols and its ammunition in a bag which was given to another policemen Nizamuddin Saiyed for handing it over to Tarun Barot at Khodiyar farm.If we piece together, all the above facts, it makes a whole story. Starting from intelligence inputs to the planting of weapons, it was all carried out by Rajinder Kumar. If we look at the standard of proof, the evidence collected under section 164 against Rajinder Kumar, it is sufficient to convict him from Murder, Abduction and Conspiracy, perhaps as the main accused. It is therefore a travesty of justice that he not only remains out but a large section of the bureaucracy and the security sector is desperately trying to save his skin.