NEW DELHI: RVS Mani, a former officer within the ministry of residence affairs (MHA) named for the Padma Shri this Republic Day eve, was instrumental in blowing the lid off the 2 contradictory affidavits filed by the UPA govt in 2009, beneath his signature, within the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.Whereas the primary affidavit had cited pinpointed inputs by central intelligence companies establishing Jahan as a part of an LeT module tasked to assassinate high-level political functionaries in India, the next affidavit went on to dismiss the evidentiary worth of those intelligence inputs and distanced the Centre from Gujarat govt’s motion primarily based on the inputs.It was a number of years later that Mani went public, not directly claiming “political interference” to revise the affidavit. Mani owned as much as having drafted the primary affidavit filed on Aug 6, 2009, primarily based on intelligence experiences he had seen and located to be “exact, correct and actual”. He stated the experiences had clear particulars concerning terror antecedents of the four-member module, comprising Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Jishan Johar and Amjad Ali, and laid down the sequence of occasions main as much as the encounter in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004, by which all 4 had been neutralised.The unique affidavit cited Indian newspaper experiences primarily based on the declare made in LeT mouthpiece ‘Ghazwa Instances’ that “the veil of Ishrat Jahan, a lady activist of LeT, was eliminated by Indian police and her physique stored with different ‘mujahideens (terrorists)'”, as a affirmation of her terror hyperlinks. Nevertheless, in a subsequent affidavit filed on Sept 29, 2009, MHA stated all intel inputs don’t represent conclusive proof and it’s for state govt and state police to behave on such inputs. It was submitted Centre was on no account involved with such motion and doesn’t condone or endorse any unjustified or extreme motion. Whereas the primary affidavit stated the case was not match for investigation by CBI, the second stated the Centre wouldn’t object to an impartial inquiry or CBIprobe.Mani had later stated the second affidavit was not drafted by him and that he had signed and filed it as he was beneath orders. In line with a press release made in 2016 by then residence minister Rajnath Singh in Parliament, the second affidavit (in 2009) was vetted by the then legal professional common and authorised by the then residence minister (P Chidambaram). Notings on the file didn’t point out any cause for revising the affidavit. Rajnath’s assertion additionally cited testimony of 26/11 accused and American LeT operative David Coleman Headley, confirming Jahan as “a feminine terrorist” killed by the Indian police in a botched-up LeT operation.Mani had additionally stated he was “tortured” by the chief of SIT when summoned in 2013. Mani has penned a number of books primarily based on the central theme of political interference in terror investigations, together with ‘The Fable of Hindu Terror: Insider Account of Ministry of Residence Affairs’ and ‘Deception: A Household that Deceived the Complete Nation’.