Congress sticks to its stand on Ishrat Jehan case: Sonia Gandhi

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has said her party sticks to its stand on Ishrat Jehan who was killed in an alleged fake encounter in 2004. Mrs Gandhi said in New Delhi the former Home Minister and party leader P Chidambaram has already clarified the decision taken by the then UPA government. When asked that BJP is targeting the Congress leadership over the matter, she replied that her party is being attacked since it was in power. Later, talking to mediapersons outside Parliament, party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, BJP should stop politicizing and tempering the judicial procedure related to Ishrat Jehan. Saying that the case is under trial, Mr Surjewala said, whatever decision was taken was based on the intelligence inputs. Reacting over the revelations made by former Union Home Secretary G K Pillai, the spokesperson said, Mr Pillai never recorded on file that there was a difference of opinion between the then Home Minister P Chidambaram and him. On former Under Secretary in the Home Ministry R V S Mani’s allegations that he was pressurized to file the second affidavit in the Supreme Court in which the reference to the LeT terror group naming Ishrat Jahan was dropped, Randeep Surjewala said, Mr Mani had given irresponsible statements in the past too. AIR correspondent reports that former Home Secretary G K Pillai had claimed that there was political interference in the case which led to deletion of reference to LeT from the affidavit filed in 2009.