Nooranad is a sleepy village in Kerala’s Alappuzha district. But it has come in for media attention after magistrate S.P. Tamang’s recent report concluded that the Gujarat police had killed Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, a native of this village, in a fake encounter in June 2004. Shot dead with him in that “encounter” were Jishan Johar, Amjadali Rana and Ishrat Jahan. The police alleged they were Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists plotting to assassinate Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
Pranesh’s 69-year-old father M.R. Gopinath Pillai, a former employee of BHEL, still lives here. He has been recounting to the media the trauma he’s undergone since the cops killed his son, branding him a terrorist. “The past five years and two months have been traumatic. My son could never be a terrorist,” he says. “Pranesh converted not out of love for Islam but because he thought there was no option if he wanted to marry the girl of his choice.”
Pranesh met Sajida in Pune, where his father was posted. His father says the two grew up together and were perhaps destined to marry. Pranesh converted to Islam in 1996, before marrying Sajida. Later, he found a job with the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority. After a few years there, he used his savings to start, first, a perfume business, and then a travel agency in Pune. Ishrat used to work part-time for the travel agency.
Pillai last saw his son on May 31, 2004, before Pranesh and Sajida left for Pune with their children in a new blue Indica. Pranesh, who liked driving, had come to fetch his son, who was spending his vacation with his grandfather in Kerala. Pillai has only kind words for his daughter-in-law. “Sajida nursed my ailing wife in a way no other girl would,” he says. “She isn’t a Hindu, but there’s no fault I can find in her.”
After Pranesh’s killing, Pillai had gone to Ahmedabad. He says he was shocked by what people told him. “Locals told me of this police officer (D.G. Vanzara) and his uncanny knack for cooking up stories and plots to please his political bosses,” he says. “The magistrate’s report has only confirmed this.”
The other day someone identifying himself as a BJP leader called Pillai to ask if he would accept ex-gratia payment from Modi. “I told him it’s a cruel joke,” he says. “Because tomorrow you could kill one more of my children and try to settle the matter with compensation.”
