Modi and Advani were on Lashkar’s hitlist before Ishrat Jahan encounter – IB Letter to CBI

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani were among the leaders who were in the hitlist of the alleged terrorists killed in an encounter with Gujarat Police in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

Headlines Today is in possession of the letter which was sent to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which mentions that LeT had instructed its cadres in India to monitor the movements of these leaders. The letter written on Feb 13, 2013 also says that the IB had prior inputs about the threat to the senior BJP leaders including L.K. Advani, Narendra Modi, Praveen Togadia and then Shiv Sena chief late Bal Thackeray.

About two months before the Ishrat Jahan encounter on June 15, 2004, IB had alerted Gujarat and other States’ Police chiefs about the presence of Lashkar terrorists planning to carry out attacks.

IB’s Gujarat chief Rajendra Kumar had personally met then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner K.R. Kaushik and had apprised about the inputs that two Lashkar terrorists, hailing from Pakistan’s Punjab region were in Gujarat to carry out the attacks. Kumar has also told Kaushik that both the suspected terrorists were being helped by an Indian citizen in Pune.

Notably, arrested terrorist David Headley has also revealed to the FBI that Ishrat Jahan was a suicide bomber of LeT.

Leaders who were on the target:

Bal Thackeray

L.K. Advani

Ashok Singhal

Praveen Togadia

Four of these leaders, except Narendra Modi were not in Gujarat when the conspiracy to target them was hatched so Modi was the prime target at the time.

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