The CBI asked the apex court probe of Sohrabuddin and Prajapati should be merged.
In an arguments before a Supreme Court Bench led by Justice P Sathasivam, the CBI supported a petition filed by Prajapati’s mother Narmada Bai seeking the transfer of the probe into her son’s death from the Gujarat CID to the central agency.
CBI told the court that cops along with Amit Shah, a close aide of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, conspired to kill Tulsi Prajapati for his role as a witness in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter killing case.
Prajapati is the sole eye witness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausarbi by Gujarat police in Andhra Pradesh. While Sohrabuddin was killed in a fake encounter on November 26, 2005 and Kausar Bi was eliminated a few days later, Prajapati was killed in December 2006 in Banaskantha district, north Gujarat, even as Gujarat’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Geeta Johri inched closer to questioning him in connection with the case.
“After the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and murder of Kauserbi, Prajapati knew that his death was imminent at the hands of the Gujarat Police in connivance with the Rajasthan Police as he was the only surviving prime witness to the abduction and killing,” the CBI said in the report.
However Counsel for Shah, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, strongly protested Tulsi’s line of argument. The entire case was “politically motivated”, and the CBI was dancing to the tune of its political masters, he said.
Amit Shah was granted bail by the Gujarat High Court three months after his arrest for his alleged role in the Sohrabuddin case.
Amit Shah had to quit the Narendra Modi government in July 2010 after being slapped with charges of murder and kidnapping in the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi in 2005.
