Ishrat Jahan is an enigma; a mystery and a good plot for a Bollywood/Hollywood movie. She has also the characteristics of a crime story with all the twists, turns and mystery.

Who was she? It is difficult to say to the satisfaction of all, the least of all our liberal intellectuals and the human rights organizations which are always seen on the right side of the wrong persons.

The Ishrat story surfaced with her killing in an encounter. It was then alleged that she was an innocent girl who had been killed in a fake encounter.

Ishrat, an LeT ‘martyr'

But on July 15, 2004, as per a report in the Indian Express that day, the story took another turn with the Lashkar-e-Taiba website claiming that she was the organisation's martyr. Ishrat was married to one of the three others in the car, said the report in http://www.jamatuddawa.org/. 

 ‘‘Ishrat was with her husband sitting on the front seat of the car,'' said the report on the site run by Jamat-ul-Dawa, the new name of Markaz-ad-Dawa Wal Arshad, the Lashkar's parent organisation, which was banned by the US in 2002.

Ishrat was among the two Indians - the other being Javed Sheikh from Pune- and two suspected Pakistani nationals who were gunned down with Gujarat police, claiming that they were planning to assassinate Chief minister Narendra Modi.

A student of Mumbai's Khalsa College, Ishrat's death had sparked a major controversy with many claiming that she was innocent. However, Gujarat and Mumbai police had said there were sufficient leads to suspect her involvement in militant activities.

Ishrat Jahan and three others were shot dead on June 15, 2004 by the Gujarat police which claims to have killed them in an ‘encounter' to foil an "assassination bid" on Chief Minister Narendra Modi. It is alleged that whole drama was enacted to politically help Modi and Privar by creating a sympathy wave in his favor and tarnish the image of a particular community as ‘terrorists'. But was this the lone case in which a particular community was allegedly involved and therefore an effort was made to "tarnish" this community's image? Was this very community earlier never found to be involved in any such terrorist crimes?

UPA about-turn

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, the Union Home Ministry stood by the "intelligence inputs" given by the central agencies to Gujarat police in 2004 about threat to chief minister Narendra Modi from LeT terrorists and their movements. But when there were voices against this affidavit and the Congress saw its adverse fall-out in its political and electoral fortunes, the ministry, as an afterthought backed, out saying "all such inputs do not constitute proof" and expressed its willingness for a CBI enquiry. A CBI enquiry helps the ruling party because the Government continues to have its power to twists the arm of this agency to the way it suits its electoral fortunes.  

What a hypocrisy that if a State government does not take preventive measures to foil such attempts and a terrorist strike succeeds in killing innocent people, the Union Home Ministry is quick to shout from the roof-tops that it had warned the State government, in advance, and what could it do when the State government failed to act in time.