Noose tightening around former Gujarat Minister Amit shah

SC transfers Prajapati case to CBI

By TwoCircles.net Special Correspondent


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Ahmedabad: The noose is further tightening around former Minister of State for Home Amit Shah after the Supreme Court on Friday transferred the further investigation into Tulsi Prajapati case to the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI).

Sources in the police department say that he is likely to be arrested in this case after CBI beings the probe. He was earlier arrested in Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and murder of his wife Kausar Bi. However, he was released on bail but externed from Gujarat.

Prajpati’s mother Narmada Devi, on whose petition the Supreme Court ordered CBI probe, had accused Shah of being involved in the killing of Prajapati. In her petition, she had alleged that Prajapati was killed to eliminate all evidence in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case and murder of his wife Kausar Bi.

Prajapati was a witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in November 2005 and cold blooded murder of his wife Kausari Bi by a team of Gujarat and Rajasthan police.

Prajapati was allegedly shot dead on December 28, 2006, in an alleged police encounter on the outskirts of Chapri village near pilgrim town of Ambaji bordering Rajasthan.

As the accused involved were Shah and senior police officials, Narmada Devi had demanded a CBI probe.

Her counsel Huzaifa Ahmadi had argued that it was not possible for the Gujarat police to investigate such a sensitive case against its own seniors and influential politicians of the ruling party.

But the Gujarat government and Shah, through their counsels including Ram Jethmalani had strongly opposed CBI taking over the case, saying that the Central government was trying to implicate Shah and Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the encounter deaths.

But Ahmadi and CBI counsel KTS Tulsi justified the transfer plea saying that the investigations by the Gujarat police was “biased’’ and that the killing of Prajapati was linked with Sohrabuddin’s extra judicial killing and the murder of his wife.
As CBI had conducted investigations in Sohrabuddin’s case, Ahmadi and Tulsi argued that Prajapati’s case also probed by the same agency to dig out the truth.

Ahmadi had told the apex court bench that Sohrabuddin, Kausari Bi and another person, suspected to be Prajapati, were picked up by a joint team of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh police from a bus going from Hyderabad to Sangli on November 22, 2005.
While Sohrabuddin was gunned down in a fake encounter on November 24, 2005, his wife was murdered in cold blooded manner after two days. Prajapati was allowed to go and arrested in a case in Udaipur in Rajasthan.

However, he was later on brought to Gujarat on transfer warrant for his appearance in a court case. He was shot dead in an alleged encounter after he escaped from police clutches and allegedly fired on police party that was looking for him on December 28, 2006. The circumstantial evidence indicated that Tulsiram was eliminated to destroy evidence when the Special Investigation Team(SIT) began investigations into Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi case on Supreme Court orders on a petition by Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin.

Though 15 policemen including three IPS officials were arrested in Sohrabuddin case and they are still in jail, the issued gained political controversy after Shah was arrested by CBI. In his chargesheet, CBI had accused Shah of being a part of the extortion racket run by Sohrabuddin. Another police official close to Shah Abhay Chudasma was also chargesheted by CBI in the extortion racket and was arrested. He is also in jail.

However, the state government all along has been maintaining that the third person picked up from the Sangli-bound bus was not Prajapati but Kalimuddin alias Nayeemuddin, a naxalite-turned-police informer who had accompanied Sohrabuddin and his wife in the bus.

The state government submitted that instead of tracing Nayeemuddin, CBI had floated the theory of Prajapati being the third accomplice of Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi with a view to implicating Shah and Modi.

However, the Supreme Court on Friday, dismissing the arguments of the Gujarat government and Shah, ordered CBI to probe Prajapati’s alleged encounter and submit the report within six months.

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