Modi’s man charged with murder

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ToI front page news dated 24 July 2010.

Modi’s man charged with murder​

CBI Swings Into Action As Shah Ducks Again


TIMES NEWS NETWORK



Ahmedabad:

As chief minister Narendra Modi’s closest political aide, Amit Shah, managed to dodge the CBI for the second straight day, the investigators mandated by the Supreme Court to get to the bottom of the Sohrabuddin Sheikh murder case filed their first chargesheet on Friday, accusing the junior minister for home of murder, extortion and destruction of evidence. Shah’s arrest is imminent, with the CBI literally having thrown the book at him and an anticipatory bail plea rejected. ​

The chargesheet accuses him of extorting Rs 5 crore from a group of seven Gujarati businessmen who had used gangster Sohrabuddin’s fire power for recovery of dues.

Legally, there couldn’t have been a stronger indictment in this case pertaining to the killings of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauserbi in November 2005 which was handed over to the CBI in January by the apex court. Shah has been accused of all serious offences for which 15 police officers have already been booked and are serving prison sentences for the past three years — their bail having been denied time and again.

As the matter turned into a major confrontation between the Congress and BJP, Modi himself swung into action to pre-empt his right-hand man’s arrest by orchestrating the political row, even as he himself remained silent.

Strategically, this was a masterstroke by the CBI which has now laid its cards on the table, giving ample evidence of the ammunition it has against a politically explosive target. It has not spared Shah on any count even as the minister ducked arrest for the second day after receiving summons.

The CBI has based its charges against Shah on nearly 20 witness accounts, four recorded under Section 164 before a magistrate.

DOGGED DODGER

For second consecutive day, Gujarat junior home minister Amit Shah avoids CBI summons, sends lawyer to seek time & questionnaire.​

Files plea for anticipatory bail, which is rejected CBI files its first chargesheet in Sohrabuddin encounter case, names Shah as accused. Minister’s defiance pushed CBI which had time till July 26 to file chargesheet BJP rallies around Shah, charging ‘political conspiracy’. Boycotts lunch meet with PM, forcing him to cancel it
CM Narendra Modi in firefighting mode, calls Advani. Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ravi Shankar Prasad hold briefing but answer no questions on charges against Shah

In this vitiated atmosphere it would not be proper to attend the lunch meeting... Can we be having lunch while our home minister is being grilled by CBI?
Sushma Swaraj | BJP

A press conference (by BJP leaders) on this is a blatant attempt to pressurize investigations...to create an arc of immunity for Amit Shah and indeed for Narendra Modi
Abhishek Singhvi | CONGRESS

 

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Aide was under Guj CID lens before CBI took over​

Manoj Mitta | TNN



New Delhi:

Long before CBI took over the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, Gujarat police CID made repeated and damning references to home minister Amit Shah in one of its four interim reports to the Supreme Court. Thus, BJP leaders were economical with truth in claiming on Friday that Shah’s name cropped up in the investigations only after CBI had replaced CID on the courts orders in January this year. ​

Consider the string of evidences against Shah recorded by Gujarat CID in its last interim report submitted in January 2007, three years before CBI was brought into the picture.

It said that its probe ‘‘faced no hurdle’’ till it recorded witness statements about an Ahmedabad farm house in which Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausarbi had been kept before their liquidation. The only reason CID cited for the hurdles faced by it thereafter was that accused police officers D G Vanzara and Rajkumar Pandiyan had alerted Shah about the discovery related to the farm house.

Shah ‘‘brought to bear pressure’’ on CID chief G C Raigar who ‘‘reportedly directed’’ the inquiry in-charge, IGP Geetha Johri, ‘‘to suspend the enquiry and took away the papers of inquiry under guise of scrutiny’’. During the period the inquiry was ‘‘stalled’’, Sohrabuddin’s associate Tulsiram Prajapati mysteriously escaped from custody on December 26, 2006 and was killed in an encounter just two days later.

‘‘It is learnt that Shah directed Raigar to provide him the list of witnesses, both police and private, who are yet to be contacted by CID for recording their statements. Such direction of minister of state for home goes beyond the scope of his office, was patently illegal and apparently designed to provide the list to accused police officers so as to enable them to take measures in their defence.’’

In a meeting he held with Joshi, Raigar and DGP P C Pande, Shah ‘‘attempted to influence the investigating agency into believing that Kauserbi was not a lawfully married wife of Sohrabuddin and that she might have run away somewhere. It is learnt that the minister in the course of the conversation he had with senior police officers had admitted in a cavalier manner that Kauserbi had been killed as well.’’
When Pande and Raigar pleaded with Shah to let them register offences against delinquent police officers, ‘‘the minister was not agreeable and apparently directed them to ensure submission of periodic interim reports to the SC, thus buying time.’’

When such interference was exposed by The Times of India in February 2007, Shah, disregarding the advice of Pande and his own home department, directed it to issue an order transferring the charge of CID from Raigar to O P Mathur, who had already been served a chargesheet for various acts of omission and commission. ‘‘Thus, the bringing of a tainted officer to head CID is clearly seen as an act to obstruct the interest of justice and save the accused police officers for the crime they have committed.’’
If the Supreme Court lost faith in Gujarat CID three years after it had filed such a candid report about Shah’s alleged complicity, it is because of the subsequent tardiness in its investigations. While directing CBI on January 12, 2010 to take over the Sohrabuddin case, the court gave a detailed account of CID’s lapses, including its failure to follow up on the wealth of telephone records. ‘‘So far as the call records are concerned, it would be evident from the same that they had not been analyzed properly, particularly the call data relating to three senior police officers either in relation to Sohrabbuddin’s case or in Prajapati’s case.’’

It is the analysis of these very records that has now prompted CBI to issue summons to Shah. Even the timing of the summons cannot be faulted as it was determined by the July 31 deadline set by the Supreme Court for the CBI to report the progress made by it. The BJP leaders are, therefore, bordering on contempt of court in alleging that the implication of Shah is politically motivated.