A Special Investigating Team (SIT) has concluded that Ishrat Jehan, a 19-year-old young college student, was killed in a fake encounter by the Gujarat police in 2004.In its report to the Gujarat High Court, the SIT has said that the four were killed prior to the date of encounter on June 15, 2004. The court has now ordered the filing of a First Information Report (FIR) for murder against the police officers involved in the encounter.The court is now considering which central agency --the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the National Investigation Agency (NIA) --can probe the case and has sought suggestions from the petitioners and the state government.The court said, "The probe agency would need to find out who played the key role in the encounter, what was the motive and what was the actual time of the death of the four people".The Mumbai-based Ishrat, her friend Pranesh Pillai, and two others, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, were found dead on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004; the Ahmedabad Crime Branch had claimed they were shot as they were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) terrorists who planned to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi.But Ishrat's mother Shamima Kausar and Gopinath Pillai, father of Pranesh, filed petitions raising questions about the police version.Last year, a division bench of the High Court comprising justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari constituted the SIT to investigate the genuineness of the encounter.The SIT submitted its report in a sealed envelope on Friday; the court which had been supervising the investigations directly, heard the case today.The three-member SIT headed by R R Verma has, however, not touched on the allegation that the four were members of the LeT.Last month, members of the SIT had reconstructed the alleged encounter at the site where the bodies were found. Experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) were present.The car with the Maharashtra number plate, which was claimed to had been used by Ishrat and her associates to come to Ahmedabad, and the police Gypsy were also brought to the scene.The SIT also carried out psycho-analytical test reports of some of the key witnesses in the case to reach a conclusive decision on the encounter.The SIT recorded the statements of over 240 witnesses in the case, including those of police officers who were part of the encounter team then.It also recorded the statement of crime branch police constable Moti Desai, who allegedly told the SIT member Satish Verma that the Ishrat encounter was fake, but later retracted his statement.The SIT sources had indicated that it had received some information that the four were seen in the police custody much before their killings, which indicated that it was a fake encounter, but it lacked documentary evidences to substantiate such a conclusion.

The investigation was delayed with several senior officers nominated to head the SIT either resigning or refusing to take over for various reasons. Mr Verma, a Bihar cadre IPS officer, was named to head the team a few months ago.(With PTI inputs)