The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a plea that sought to quash charges against the Gujarat Police for the alleged fake encounter in 2004 in which Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed. The 2008 Mumbai attacks convict and Lashkar-e-Taiba member David Headley in February testified to a Mumbai court that Jahan was a member of the terror group. Gujarat police personnel face trial at a Mumbai court for their role in the encounter. Former Deputy Inspector General, Gujarat, DG Vanzara, was in prison from 2007 to 2015 for allegedly conducting a series of fake encounters or extrajudicial killings during his time at the Anti-Terrorist Squad.

The plea, besides seeking to close criminal proceedings against the police personnel, also sought a direction from the court stating that killing a terrorist was not a crime under Indian law. The fake encounter has been an ongoing point of contention between the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party. The Shiv Sena on Tuesday asked for a case of sedition to be filed against former Home Minister P Chidambaram for allegedly removing all LeT references in an affidavit on the encounter. Former Home Secretary GK Pillai recently claimed that an Intelligence Bureau operation led to the deaths of the four LeT terrorists, and that the government had prior knowledge of it.