Court rejects Amit Shah’s anticipatory bail plea

GANDHINAGAR - A Central Bureau of Investigation court here on Friday evening rejected Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah’s anticipatory bail plea that he had filed through his lawyer to avoid arrest in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case .

The CBI has 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)