Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran on Saturday levelled serious allegations against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s appointment of Kerala police chief Loknath Behera. He alleged that Loknath Behera tried to absolve Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah of several criminal cases, including the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case.
Addressing a rally as part of the Muslim Youth League's Yuvajana Yathra in Vadakara, Kozhikode, the former central Minister of State for Home Affairs claimed that he had access to some important file pertaining to the case. “Being in the home ministry for five years, I have had the opportunity to access some of the important case files in the country. We saw one of the biggest riots in the country, the Gujarat violence. We also saw the cases that ensued, including the Ishrat Jahan and several other cases, in which Modi and Amit Shah were co-accused,” said Mullappally.
He said that Loknath Behera was one of the four National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials, who were investigating the case. “He (Loknath) whitewashed Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the report he prepared, which amused all of us,” he said.
Ishrat Jahan case relates to “encounter” killing of the 19-year-old Mumbai woman and three others, including Kerala man Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, in the outskirts of Ahmedabad, on June 15, 2004. According to the Gujarat police, the four, who had terror links, had allegedly plotted to kill Narendra Modi, who was the Gujarat CM then.
In 2010, former NIA officer Loknath had interrogated Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley at a US prison in the case. The officer had then said that he had sent the report on Ishrat Jahan's links with LeT to the then Congress-led UPA government.
Mullappally also said that Pinarayi Vijayan was quick to sign the appointment order of the Director General of Police, Loknath Behera.
“As soon as he became the Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan went to New Delhi to meet Narendra Modi and even gifted him the Aranmula mirror, which is a symbolic gesture to wish someone long life. He even hailed the PM at a press meeting at the Kerala House. And within a few hours of his return to Thiruvananthapuram, the first file that he signed was the appointment order of Loknath Behera as the state police chief,” the Congress leader, adding, “What was the hurry, Mr CM?”
“When Narendra Modi told his new-found friend Pinarayi Vijayan to sign the file recommending Loknath as the police chief, he obeyed it,” he added.