Soon after PP Pandey was accused in the Ishrat Jahan case, Geetha Johri, was appointed the state’s director general of police on Tuesday, ANI reported. Johri, Gujarat’s first female IPS officer was earlier charged in the Sohrabbudin Sheikh encounter case, but the charges were dropped.
Her appointment was announced after Gujarat’s in-charge DGP, P P Pandey, chose to step down from his post. Johri, a 1982 batch officer, has been posted at the State Police Housing Corporation, Gandhinagar before the news of her new appointment came in.
The former director general Pandey had resigned and the Apex Court accepted the resignation on Monday. Pandey was the head of the state crime branch when Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in an encounter by the security forces in the year 2004, in the suburbs of Ahmedabad.
In defence, the Gujarat police had linked the deceased to terrorists who planned on assassinating Narendra Modi, who was the CM of Gujarat in 2004.
On Monday, the Supreme Court had directed the state government to accept Pandey’s resignation. Pandey was the head of the state crime branch when Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in an alleged encounter with security forces on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. The Gujarat Police had claimed that the four had terror links and were conspiring to kill Narendra Modi, who was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time. Pandey was released on bail and returned to the force in February 2015.
