New Delhi : The case may have ignited a turf war between the Intelligence Bureau and the CBI, but Ranjit Sinha, head of the CBI, has promised no respite for senior officials from the intelligence agency and said they could use this as an opportunity to get greater freedom from the government. Sinha said sources that just like Supreme Court had ordered the government to grant greater autonomy to the CBI, the Intelligence Bureau could seek immunity in terror cases.
The CBI director discredited the Intelligence Bureaus claims that the investigations into the functioning of the security agency would harm national security. Sinha promised to uncover as much evidence as possible as the CBI works on its supplementary charge sheet in the 2004 case.
Whether the National Investigation Agency knew of possible links between her and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Sinha has said in keeping with the courts directive they will only deal with the Gujarat polices killing of her and three others.
The spat between the CBI and Intelligence Bureau over the 2004 case has reached the highest levels of the Ministry of Home Affairs with the chief of the domestic intelligence agency even writing a letter of protest against investigations into the role played by three of its officials. In its first charge sheet filed on 3 July, the CBI had held that 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan was killed in a fake encounter in 2004 and charge sheeted seven police officers in the case, saying it was a joint operation of Gujarat police and the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau.
