Modi Minister charged with murder, bail rejected

Ahmedabad: Amit Shah, one of Narendra Modi's closest aides, has been charged with murder in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. Shah, who is also Minister of State for Home in Gujarat, has been denied anticipatory bail by an Ahmedabad court. Shah remains underground - he has not been seen at his office for most of this week and has, in the last 48 hours, skipped two appointments with the CBI for interrogation. (Watch:Amit Shah - The insider | Read: Who is Amit Shah?)

According to latest reports, the chargesheet has recorded chats that show DG Vanzara, who was the Deputy Inspector General (DIG), was in touch with Shah. The chargesheet also mentions recordings according to which Shah gave instructions to kill Kauser Bi.

Shah has been contemplating approaching the High Court for anticipatory bail after the same was rejected by a lower court, his lawyer said on Friday.

CBI Judge G K Upadhaya rejected Shah's application on technical grounds, as his application did not mention sections of Indian Penal Code under which he was accused.

Shah's lawyer, Mitesh Amin, said they were deliberating on legal options and contemplating approaching the higher court after the rejection of anticipatory bail plea.

"We need to first have a look at the chargesheet and the charges against the minister before taking any further decision," Amin said.

Modi has not reacted officially to the charges against Shah. Sources say it's likely that he will have to drop Shah from his cabinet. In Delhi, the BJP's senior leaders said that the CBI is being misused by the Congress against its political opponents. As a sign of protest, they said, they had decided not to attend a lunch hosted today by the Prime Minister. (Watch: Govt shamelessly misusing CBI, says Jaitley | Congress vs BJP on PM's lunch | Read: BJP skips PM's lunch, Congress is furious)

In a 30,000-page chargesheet, the CBI has accused Shah along with 14 senior police officers for killing Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, Kauser Bi, in November 2005. Some of those police officers are already in jail. (Read: Who is Sohrabuddin Sheikh)

On Friday morning, Shah skipped a 1 pm appointment with the CBI. His lawyer said the minister wanted a copy of the questions that the CBI wanted him to answer. Because the CBI refused, Shah decided on a no-show.

The minister skipped a cabinet meeting earlier this week, a sign, sources said, that he knew he was likely to be arrested. The CBI has questioned his staff on Friday about he might be. On Thursday, after the CBI issued him two summons within a space of a few hours, the minister faxed a statement to the press stressing that the CBI had been unfair to him by giving him no notice to meet its investigating officials. He also says the CBI has no evidence against him.

"He (Shah) wants to come, he wants to cooperate in the investigations, but since we have less time, we request them to give us a questionnaire, so that accordingly we can give the right answers," said Shah's lawyer.

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. (Read: Who was Sohrabuddin Sheikh?)

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. The policemen who framed and shot Sohrabudin allegedly include DG Vanzara, who was the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Gujarat police, and Abhay Chudasama, the head of Ahmedabad's crime branch.

Gujarat and Rajasthan police officers pulled Sohrabuddin and Kauser Bi along with another man, Tulsiram Prajapati, off a bus in 2005, and moved them to a farmhouse near Ahmedabad. Sohrabuddin was taken away a couple of days later and killed. Then Kauser Bi was murdered. Inspector NV Chauhan, who was reportedly assigned to guard Kauser Bi at the farmhouse, says Vanzara received a call from Shah. According to Chavan, the Home Minister said that Kauser Bi had to be eliminated in such a way that her body could not be recovered.

The minister stayed in close touch with the same policemen in 2006 as Prajapati was killed in another fake encounter. An investigating officer handling the Sohrabuddin case has told the CBI that he was told not to record Prajapati's statement on the orders of Shah. Prajapati was killed a fortnight later in Gujarat.

The Supreme Court asked the CBI to take over the Sohrabuddin case in January this year. Till then, the investigation was being handled by the Gujarat Police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The court found the CID's work unsatisfactory and told the CBI to present a report by the end of this month.

What the CBI wants to ask Amit Shah

The CBI has refused to give Amit Shah's lawyer the questions it wants to put to the minister. However, CBI sources reveal this interrogation will revolve around these questions: