Ahmedabad:
Amit Shah, Gujarat's Minister of State for Home, will be questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today in connection with the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.
Shah, who is a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had confirmed on Thursday that he will obey CBI summons and appear for questioning on Friday. He was first ordered on Thursday morning to show up for questioning by 1 pm. When there was no sign of him, the CBI issued a second summon with a deadline of 1 pm on Friday. (
Read: Who is Amit Shah?)
In a statement issued late night, he alleged that a misinformation campaign had been launched against him and claimed that there was no evidence against him. Shah also said that the fact that he was given little notice proves that the CBI "is working with malice."
In his statement, he said, "The CBI has given me the summons at such short notice. It brings in the element of suspicion that there is a conspiracy against me. I want to clarify there is no evidence against me in the case. I haven't done anything wrong and I am ready to face the investigating agencies." (
Statement by Amit Shah for missing CBI summons)
Sohrabuddin Sheikh was on a bus from Hyderabad to Sangli with his wife, Kauser Bi, when he was stopped by the Gujarat Anti-Terror Squad and Rajasthan Police officers in November 2005. The couple was moved to a farmhouse on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Sohrabuddin was then taken away and shot dead. The Anti-Terror Squad said he was a terrorist who planned to assassinate Narendra Modi. Kauser Bi disappeared from the farmhouse. In 2007, the state government accepted in court that Sohrabuddin and Kauser Bi had been murdered, on the basis of investigations by the state police's Criminal Investigation department (CID).
But the CBI maintains that there are hard evidences against the minister and that is why they wanted to question him. It says that telephone call data available with it indicates that Shah was in constant touch with some tainted cops during the fake encounter.
NDTV has also learnt that the CBI has statements from two Crime Branch inspectors saying the indicted cops got instructions from Shah.
The CBI also says the call data indicates that Amit Shah was in constant touch with the same indicted cops in the fake encounter of Tulsiram Prajapati a year later. Prajapati was reportedly a witness to the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.
The CBI also has the statement of an investigating officer in the Sohrabuddin case saying his request to take Prajapati's statement in connection with the Sohrabuddin case had been turned down on Amit Shah's orders.
Also amongst what the CBI has collected against Shah is a statement allegedly made by a policeman, NV Chauhan. He was responsible for guarding Kauser Bi at the guest house where she was being forced to stay. Chauhan says Shah phoned DG Vanzara, who was then Deputy Inspector General of the state police and asked for Kauser Bi to be killed.
Chauhan's statement reads:"(Vanzara) had a chat with that person for more than 2-3 minutes. After the talk on phone got over, he told Pandiyan sir that it was call from the Home Minister and he feels it can be dangerous to leave Kauser Bi. So we need to eliminate her and that also in such a way that nothing of her remains can be found. If that happens, her case will go in records as a missing person. Then subsequently Kauser Bi was eliminated."
Vanzara is now in jail along with other senior police officers including Abhay Chudasama, the head of Ahmedabad's Crime branch. They are accused of criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and murder.
Sources in the CBI say that witnesses have testified that they were threatened not to mention Shah's name while sharing their accounts. Some witnesses have reportedly stated that after her death, Shah had instructed government officials to portray Kauser Bi as a Pakistani who had returned home.
In January this year, the Supreme Court asked that the CBI investigate the case instead of the CID on the grounds that the CID's progress was not satisfactory. The CBI has till the end of this month to file its report in court.
If Shah does not keep his Friday appointment with the CBI, the agency can go to court to ask for an arrest warrant for him. Shah has lately not been at work. He also skipped a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. This is the first time a serving minister will be questioned in connection with Sohrabuddin's death. The CBI is being used to defame the BJP and the Modi government," said Ravi Shankar Prasad, the party's general secretary.
In March this year, Modi was summoned for questioning by a Special Investigation Team set up by the Supreme Court to investigate the Gujarat riots of 2002. The Gujarat Chief Minister was asked to explain the accusations against him in the murder of former Congress MP Ehsaan Jaffrey, who was burnt alive, along with nearly 70 other people in Ahmedabad's Gulbarg Society. Jaffrey's widow, Zakiya, has said that Modi and close to 60 of his bureaucrats, ministers and policemen conspired to allow the massacre of Muslims. Zakiya alleges that Modi and his colleagues instructed policemen and bureaucrats not to respond to pleas for help from Muslims being attacked during the riots.