CBI seeks to declare Gujarat AGDP proclaimed offender

(UNI) The CBI filed an application in a special court seeking to declare Gujarat Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) P P Pandey a proclaimed offender in connection with the Ishrat Jehan encounter case of 2004. Moving the application before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate H S Khutvad, a day after the Supreme Court rejected Pandey's plea for quashing the First Information Report and protection from the arrest warrant issued against him, the CBI submitted before the court that the probe agency had issued several summons and an arrest warrant too has been issued against him. The Apex Court had rejected his plea. Still he has failed to appear before the CBI for questioning. So now he be declared a proclaimed offender in connection with the case. The court will take a decision tomorrow. Mr Pandey has been missing since May 10. The CBI has named 20 police officers including Pandey, G L Singhal, Tarun Barot, former police commissioner K R Kaushik, former senior police officer D G Vanzara, who is in jail in connection with Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case of 2005. Ishrat and Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai were killed along with two others Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana on June 15, 2004 in an alleged encounter by the city crime branch sleuths near Kotarpur waterworks on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. After the shoot-out, cops dubbed them as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives out to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi. UNI