Yesterday afternoon, several reporters asked Union Minister for Home Affairs Sushil Kumar Shinde on why an NIA note (or an excerpt from a report) on the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba agent David Headley mentioning Ishrat Jahan was not being released or confirmed by his Ministry. Shinde avoided commenting on Ishrat’s terror links giving an excuse which holds little water.

Before Shinde’s explanation is examined, it is useful to understand the reason why it was sought by the media. Apparently, an NIA note/report (NIA UO No. 4/2009/NIA/16104) dated 13/10/2010 contains a Paragraph 168 wherein Headley mentions that Ishrat Jahan was one of Muzzammil’s “botched up” operations. This has been circulating in the media for a few weeks now. The writer has previously written a column explaining this.

In response to questions seeking clarification on what exactly Headley said about Ishrat, Shinde said(originally in Hindi) that: (a) he did not have any report with him; (b) whatever Headley may have said, that would have been said to the FBI; (c) there is an agreement between the FBI and our police (i.e. NIA) to not disclose anything.

The reason why this explanation rings hollow, and looks like a rather lame excuse, is that a version of the NIA interrogation report of October 2010 along with Headley’s 175-paragraph statement explaining his association with the LeT is already in the public domain. There are at least two portals where one can find the report and Headley’s statement.

One is The Investigative Project on Terrorism, a US-based non-profit research group founded by an eminent consultant, where a scanned copy of the entire NIA report has been uploaded. Readers interested in examining that report may click here. The other portal, closer to home, is IBNLive. Readers may clickhere. In fact, this report was made available to the media.

This report, though, does not contain any reference to Ishrat Jahan. It seems increasingly clear now that the version made public is a ‘sanitised’ one which removed references to Ishrat on the pretext that they were in the nature of ‘second hand information’ and ‘hearsay’. Strangely, though, the report made public has several instances of ‘second hand information’ and ‘hearsay’ as pointed out by this writer.

Now, Headley has never been in the custody of Indian investigating agencies. The NIA interrogated him in the US in 2010 after the US Department of Justice permitted it to do so. More importantly, Headley has never been probed by the NIA alone. As the NIA report states in the beginning, NIA probed him for a total of 34 hours in the presence of FBI prosecutors and FBI officials.

Therefore, if Shinde is trying to say that anything said by Headley in the presence of FBI is subject to the non-disclosure ‘agreement’ between the FBI and NIA, that ‘agreement’ has all but lost its efficacy given that Headley’s statement is very much in the public domain.

Moreover, much has been made of former Home Secretary GK Pillai’s volte-face of sorts where he appears as giving Ishrat the “benefit of doubt” despite making vehement assertions on her LeT links two years ago. Lost in this “U-turn” is a critical concession later on in the report where he says that FBI did provide MHA with an input that Headley had mentioned about Ishrat.

Did Headley talk about Ishrat to FBI alone? It isn’t entirely clear why Headley would talk about Ishrat to FBI and not NIA. Moreover, if one carefully examines Paragraph 168 that has been circulating around, it starts with “on being asked about Ishrat Jahan”. This implies that the interrogators asked Headley about Ishrat Jahan pursuant to which he gave information.

If this implies that FBI asked Headley about Ishrat, one wonders why. And, if FBI actually did ask, does it mean that even the FBI thought Headley might know about Ishrat? A US investigating agency questioning an LeT agent about Ishrat is either unfathomable or revealing – either way, it is extremely significant.

If, on the other hand, the NIA asked Headley about Ishrat, why is that information being withheld when 175 paragraphs uttered by Headley are already in the public domain?

It is becoming increasingly clear that Shinde and, possibly, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are concealing vital information about Headley’s reference of Ishrat under some or the other pretext. Shinde, Singh and the Congress core group have reportedly seen, and perhaps discussed, this NIA note. It is rather obvious that any concession from these individuals on Headley’s reference to Ishrat would be a political risk Congress cannot afford at this stage.

Secondly, it is useful to remember that the MHA, led by P Chidambaram, had hurriedly rushed a ‘further’ affidavit in proceedings before the Gujarat High Court which sought to dilute the sensation created by its first affidavit. Did Chidambaram, the then Home Minister, have any role in ‘sanitising’ the NIA report of which he would have first access?

This has only muddied the waters further giving rise to some crucial questions, the answers to which might be even more difficult to obtain.

In an exclusive interview with Kanchan Gupta on NWRLive’s Views Hour, Ajit Doval, former Director of the Intelligence Bureau said there was, “impeccable evidence to prove Ishrat Jahan was a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. Doval said, “The very manner in which the entire investigation was started indicates that the things were less than transparent.”

Doval had been the head of the Operations Wing of the IB for a decade before he became the director of IB and is the recipient of the highest gallantry awards, the Kirti Chakra. He was the first police officer to receive this medal which was previously only given as a military honour. Doval has the distinction of being the youngest police officer ever to get the Indian Police Medal for meritorious service. He got it six years after joining the police. The norm is at least 17 years of service.

The incident had taken place way back in 2004 and that year itself the Ministry of Home Affairs had given an affidavit that they had done their investigations and found that there was nothing wrong in the way the encounter happened. The investigation also found that Ishrat Jahan and the other three who were killed with her were members of the terrorist group.

During the conversation, Doval said that for years no one thought that there was any need to start the investigation in the case prima facie as there was no evidence against the police and the Government of Gujarat. What the motivation was behind such an investigation to start with is worth considering. It was politically motivated or showed some kind of vendetta.

He very categorically said that it is evident that the investigation was not done on the proper lines. The investigating agency did not consider David Headley’s evidence, LET’s report, evidence from police in Kashmir, and evidence from people who knew Ishrat Jahan and her terror links. He said, “This is a case where the conclusion was pre-decided and evidences were created where none existed, to arrive at the pre-decided conclusion.”

He said, “CBI is an institution and all institutions are made and run by people. People who investigated the case must have some personal or other consideration and that is why they did not act in professional way when they investigated the case. In recent times, for many cases it has been observed that CBI has not conducted the investigation objectively but have conducted them for political gains.”

Doval was of the view that one political party, to gain political mileage from a particular segment of the society, is using Ishrat Jahan as an icon to show that one particular State and its Government will undo the favours that they want to grant to that segment of the society. He said that this is one reason why no one talks about what Ishrat Jahan was doing with those three men in Gujarat who were killed along with her and that is why no one is talking about the precedents of those three men and for what motives they were in Gujarat.

During the talk with NWRLive, Doval said that the links of Ishrat Jahan with LET is unquestionable. There is enough evidence that she was LET’s terrorist and there is so much evidence that has not been put forward before the court. Ishrat Jahan was under observance for long for her connections with ISI and LET and she was regularly communicating with them.

Doval gave no importance to the fact that Ishrat was a student and said, “One can be a student and still be a terrorist if the evidence proves so and there has been ample evidence to prove that Ishrat was a terrorist and not just a cover that the three men killed along with her were using her as.” Doval said she knew all about what they did and she was very much a part of their gang. In normal situations, 19-year-old girls do not move around with three men for work purposes and it has never been mentioned for what work she was moving with them for.

In a one-of-its-kind incident where an IB officer is named publicly, Doval said, “It is really unfortunate that an officer of the calibre of Rajendra Kumar has been named.” He said there is lot of bad blood between IB and CBI and this cannot go on for long and that the issue should have been handled with more maturity. Doval also added that the investigating agency, by implicating Rajendra Kumar, tried to crack him and that they wanted to implicate someone else through Kumar by making him provide evidence against them but that did not happen and the result has been in creating great damage to the reputation of the government and CBI. It is very unfortunate that an intelligence officer was ousted and named in public for political gain.