'Given the spate of illegal encounter killings which took place under the encouragement of the state government, Chief Minister Narendra Modi should take moral responsibility and quit office,' the CPI-M politburo said in a statement issued here.

Samajwadi Party MP Kamal Akhter said: 'The Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the centre should dismiss the Gujarat government if Modi doesn't resign on moral grounds.'

However, senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu came out in support of Modi and said: 'If anything happens in the state, the chief minister is held responsible.'

The Gujarat police had claimed that Ishrat Jahan was a member of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and that she and her three friends were on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi when they were gunned down on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in June 2004.

However, according to the 240-page report by metropolitan magistrate S.P. Tamang, the four -- Ishrat Jahan, Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani -- were not linked to any terror group and were killed in a 'fake encounter'.