Where GL Singhal tells me how he shot Ishrat Jahan in cold blood

'The Indian Express sting operation on the Ishrat Jahan investigation, carried as a lead story on the front page in today's (June 16, 2016) edition of the newspaper known for its investigative journalism, nails what most of us, who have been working and reporting on this case for years, have been saying for long. That the truth has been the biggest casualty in the political blame game in the extrajudicial murder of the 19-year-old girl from Mumbra, Thane, Ishrat Jahan.

Page one of the Indian Express carries a sting audio transcript of the additional secretary, home ministry, BK Prasad, who has been a key figure in the controversy surrounding the missing documents in the Ishrat Jahan investigation. He is heard tutoring the witness Ashok Kumar, who was the former director in the home ministry, to say that he hasn't seen the said documents.

Two weeks ago, my book Gujarat Files, which is an eight-month undercover investigation into the fake encounters in Gujarat, the riots and the Haren Pandya murder case was released. It has top-most officials and bureaucrats of the then Modi government in Gujarat, who were involved in various capacities in the investigation, asserting uncomfortable truths about the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah regime in the state.

Posing as Maithili Tyagi, an NRI student of the American Film Institute Conservatory, I "stung", among other people, Rajan Priyadarshi - the former chief of ATS in Gujarat, and GL Singhal, the man who shot Ishrat Jahan. In a damning confession, Rajan Priyadarshi tells me that Amit Shah confided in him that Ishrat Jahan was in his custody two days before she was shot dead...'

[Full article on the Daily O.]