PP Pandey was an accused in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case of 2004 and was later discharged.Former in charge police chief of Gujarat DGP PP Pandey was among the 168 police officers from the state who were conferred with medals for distinguished and meritorious service by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in Ahmedabad Thursday.
Pandey was an accused in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case of 2004 and was later discharged. Another retired IPS officer Mohan Jha who was in the Supreme Court-appointed SIT that investigated the Ishrat Jahan encounter case was also among those awarded at the event.
Ishrat Jahan, Pranesh Pillai and two others – Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, who were said to be Pakistani nationals – were killed near Kotarpur waterworks on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004 allegedly by Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch, then led by DCP DG Vanzara. Pandey was the Joint Commissioner (crime) at the time. DCB had claimed at the time that the four were operatives of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and they were out to kill the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The names of the 168 officers were announced between 2014 and 2019 on the occasions of Republic Day and Independence Day in these five years. Pandey was one among 18 who were awarded a President Police Medal. 150 others got the ‘police medal'.
A 1980-batch IPS, in July 2013, Pandey – posted as additional DGP [ADGP] (CID) crime at the time – was arrested in the encounter…
