CBI files chargesheet against Shah, 14 others in Sohrabbuddin encounter case

AHMEDABAD - The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday filed chargesheet against Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah and 14 others in the Sohrabbuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and killing of his wife, Kausarbi.

CBI spokesperson Harsh Bhal said in a statement here today said: “”The chargsheet has been filed under IPC Sections 120-B(conspiracy) read with 342 (wrongful confinement), 364 (kidnapping and abducting to murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person) and 368 (keeping in confinement kidnapped or abducted person).”

“The other Sections are 384 (extortion), 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of valuable evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offenders) in the fake encounter of Sohrabbuddin and brutally killing of his wife,” he added.

The chargesheet filed in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate A Y Dave names Shah besides DIG D G Vanzara, SPs Rajkumar Pandian and M N Dinesh and DSPs M L Parmar and N K Amin among others.

Earlier, a CBI court here on Friday evening rejected Amit Shah’s anticipatory bail plea that he had filed through his lawyer to avoid arrest in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.

The CBI filed a 30,000-page chargesheet against Amit Shah, accusing him of complicity in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.

On Friday morning, Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah failed to keep his date with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the 2005 Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.

The CBI has sent teams to the office and residences of Gujarat Minister Amit Shah to locate him, following his failure to show up before the investigating agency for the second time today.

Shah’s lawyer asked the CBI for more time and detail of what sort of questions the minister is likely to face.

Shah had applied for anticipatory bail through his lawyer Mitesh Amin.

On Thursday, Shah, a close aide of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had assured to respect the CBI summons and appear for questioning on Friday.

He was first ordered on Thursday to show up for questioning by 1 p.m.. When there was no sign of him, the CBI issued a second summons with a deadline of 1 p.m. on Friday.

In November 2005, Sohrabuddin was shot dead on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. His wife, Kauser Bi, was also killed. At the time, Gujarat’s Anti Terror Squad (ATS) said that Sohrabuddin was a terrorist who planned to assassinate Modi.

In 2007, the Gujarat state government admitted in court that Sohrabuddin and Kauser Bi had been wrongly killed. Some of the state’s senior-most policemen are in jail, charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, and kidnapping.

Phone records allegedly show that those same policemen were in close and constant touch with Shah once they picked up Sohrabuddin and his wife, Kauserbi, from a bus headed from Hyderabad to Sangli. (ANI)