A special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Wednesday discharged former Gujarat Director General of Police PP Pandey in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. He is the first accused among seven police personnel and four Intelligence Bureau officials to be discharged.
Pandey was the head of the state crime branch when Jahan and three others were killed in an alleged encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. The Gujarat Police had claimed that Jahan and the three other deceased had terror links and were conspiring to kill Narendra Modi, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat.
Pandey was arrested but released on bail and returned to the force in February 2015. In 2017, He resigned as the Gujarat Police chief after the Supreme Court said it would remove him if he did not quit.
In 2014, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah was exonerated of charges in connection with the case.
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