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Ishrat Jahan encounter killing

Extra-judicial killing by police in Gujarat, India

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ6080611 ↗
Source-derived summary

On 15 June 2004, officers of the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch and members of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) of Ahmedabad shot and killed four people. Those killed in the incident were Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year-old woman from Mumbra, Maharashtra, and Javed Ghulam Sheikh (born Pranesh Pillai), along with two Pakistani infiltrators Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar. The Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) made allegations about the entire operation being an instance of "encounter killing". The state agencies and police claimed that Ishrat Jahan and her associates were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives involved in a plot to assassinate the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi.

After the incident, an investigation was launched based on allegations that the description of the incident by the police was false and the killings were deliberate and unlawful. The police team involved in the incident had been led by DIG D.G. Vanjara, an officer who spent eight years in jail for his alleged involvement in the extrajudicial killing of another person, Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Five years later, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged. The decision was challenged by the state government and taken to the Gujarat High Court. After further investigation, in 2011, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) told the High Court that the encounter was not genuine, and the victims were killed prior to the date of the staged encounter. On 3 July 2013, the CBI filed its first chargesheet in an Ahmedabad court saying that the shooting was a staged encounter carried out in cold blood.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ishrat Jahan encounter killing” as extra-judicial killing by police in Gujarat, India. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 2009, 2011, 2013—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1985-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Ishrat, Jahan and encounter can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as extra-judicial killing by police in Gujarat, India. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6080611. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2009, 2011 and 2013.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ishrat Jahan encounter killing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.