For Chidambaram, it was an opportunity to set the record straight and disabuse any misperception that the home ministry affidavit on Ishrat Jahan and three others could be used by the Gujarat government to vindicate itself from culpability in the alleged fake encounter case.
If this affidavit was going to be seized by the Modi government for such a purpose, it was a veritable pathetic ploy, the home minister said.
The question on whether he stood by Majistrate S P Tamang's report that the encounter in which 19-year-old Jahan and three others were killed in 2004, was fake and that they were killed in cold-blood by some top police officers, was clearly outside the purview of the press conference at the Indian embassy, which was about Chidambaram visit to the US and his meetings with top Obama Administration officials and intelligence and security agency heads.
"I have not read the report. I believe it was published a couple of days ago," he said.
But, when he was pressed if the home ministry affidavit would deflate Congress' efforts to attack the Modi government and call for a re-inquiry, Chidambaram was not going to let that contention slide.
"What does the affidavit say? he asked. "To the best of my knowledge, the affidavit said that intelligence inputs were shared with the Gujarat government.That affidavit must be read in that context."
Chidambaram argued that 'you can't read into it what it does not say. I think it's self-evident that intelligence inputs are not evidence -- much less conclusive proof. They are just inputs."
He said that such intelligence inputs "are shared with governments on a regular basis," and reiterated, "That is not evidence, that is not conclusive proof. It gives leads to investigation --further inquiry."
Thus, Chidambaram said, "If a state government acts as though intelligence inputs are evidence or conclusive proof, I am sorry for that state government. And, certainly, no one suggested that on the basis of an intelligence input, you should kill anyone."
"I think too much is being attributed to that affidavit," he added. "If it is meant to defend the government of Gujarat against the excesses that may have been committed by its police, I am sorry for the government of Gujarat and the manner in which it runs its police administration."
The home ministry has stood by its affidavit that Jahan and the other three persons were suspects, but that suspects, even if they are terrorists, cannot be killed in cold blood.
"Whatever we have given in the affidavit is a fact available with the home ministry we are not backtracking from the affidavit," Home Secretary G K Pillai told the media.
However, he asserted that "terrorists cannot be killed in cold blood," indicating that each and every individual is entitled to a due process.
Asked about the US Commission on International Religious Freedom slotting India on its watch-list for oppression against minorities in Orissa and Gujarat, Chidambaram said, "I don't take these lists very seriously."
"There are so many lists published every year by so many organizations and so many magazines and they say, India has gone up one notch, India has come down one notch. I don't think you should take these lists very seriously."
But when reminded that the USCIRF was a body created by the US Congress to report of worldwide religious freedoms to lawmakers and the Administration, Chidambaram continued to dismiss it, saying, "But it's still a list."
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