NEW DELHI, June 22: The Indian government has plainly told the Gujarat establishment to give quality proof that there were Pakistani men among the four people killed in an alleged encounter in the state recently
, indicating a toughened stand against communally-inspired rhetoric.
The Indian Express reported on Tuesday that the government was clearly unimpressed by the Gujarat police's "evidence" supporting the Pakistani identity of two alleged Lashkar-i-Toiba men shot last Tuesday.
New Delhi has asked the state police to furnish a more detailed report with sufficient evidence before the matter can be taken up with Pakistan. The report was sought after the Gujarat police approached the Ministry of External Affairs to ask the Pakistan High Commission to claim the bodies of Jishan Johar and Amjadali Akbarali Rana, the two alleged Pakistani members of Lashkar-i-Toiba.
The two men were among the four persons shot dead by the Gujarat police on a deserted stretch of the Himmatnagar highway. Ishrat Jahan, a 19-year-old college student from Mumbra in Thane, and Javed Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh of Pune were the other two killed.
Civil rights activists have accused the rightwing Hindutva government of staging a fake encounter for political mileage. The issue has caused ripples even within the state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as its former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel declared that the state was experiencing a mini-emergency.
Mr Patel has stayed away from a high-level meeting of the party in Mumbai. "I am unhappy about the prevailing situation in the state. There is a sort of mini-emergency where MLAs are afraid to express their feelings," Mr Patel, who has "skipped" the BJP national executive meeting that began in Mumbai on Tuesday morning citing "knee pain", said at his residence in Ahmedabad.
