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NEW DELHI: RVS Mani, a former officer in the ministry of home affairs (MHA) named for the Padma Shri this Republic Day eve, was instrumental in blowing the lid off the two contradictory affidavits filed by the UPA govt in 2009, under his signature, in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.While the first affidavit had cited pinpointed inputs by central intelligence agencies establishing Jahan as part of an LeT module tasked to assassinate high-level political functionaries in India, the subsequent affidavit went on to dismiss the evidentiary value of these intelligence inputs and distanced the Centre from Gujarat govt’s action based on the inputs.It was several years later that Mani went public, indirectly claiming “political interference” to revise the affidavit. Mani owned up to having drafted the first affidavit filed on Aug 6, 2009, based on intelligence reports he had seen and found to be “precise, accurate and exact”. He said the reports had clear details regarding terror antecedents of the four-member module, comprising Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Jishan Johar and Amjad Ali, and laid down the sequence of events leading up to the encounter in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004, in which all four were neutralised. The original affidavit cited Indian newspaper reports based on the claim made in LeT mouthpiece ‘Ghazwa Times’ that “the veil of Ishrat Jahan, a woman activist of LeT, was removed by Indian police and her body kept with other ‘mujahideens (terrorists)'”, as a confirmation of her terror links. However, in a subsequent affidavit filed on Sept 29, 2009, MHA said all intel inputs do not constitute conclusive proof and it is for state govt and state police to act on such inputs. It was submitted Centre was in no way concerned with such action and does not condone or endorse any unjustified or excessive action. While the first affidavit said the case was not fit for investigation by CBI, the second said the Centre would not object to an independent inquiry or CBIprobe.Mani had later said the second affidavit was not drafted by him and that he had signed and filed it as he was under orders. According to a statement made in 2016 by then home minister Rajnath Singh in Parliament, the second affidavit (in 2009) was vetted by the then attorney general and approved by the then home minister (P Chidambaram). Notings on the file did not mention any reason for revising the affidavit. Rajnath’s statement also cited testimony of 26/11 accused and American LeT operative David Coleman Headley, confirming Jahan as “a female terrorist” killed by the Indian police in a botched-up LeT operation.Mani had also said he was “tortured” by the chief of SIT when summoned in 2013. Mani has penned several books based on the central theme of political interference in terror investigations, including ‘The Myth of Hindu Terror: Insider Account of Ministry of Home Affairs’ and ‘Deception: A Family that Deceived the Whole Nation’.
