Banaskantha:
The CBI and a team of forensic science experts today reconstructed the alleged fake encounter of Tulsi Prajapati by Gujarat police in 2006 at Chhapri village in the district.
The team headed by Rajendra Singh of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), and T D Dogra of Forensic Medicine Department at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), began the reconstruction early in the morning.
Prajapati, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, was himself killed in a police encounter on December 28, 2006 near Chhapri village.
The forensic experts and CBI were assisted by state CID officials. CID was investigating the case before Supreme Court transfered it to the central agency.
The experts obtained crucial data such as the distance between the police vehicle and the car in which Prajapati was travelling, location of Prajapati's body after the encounter as per the CID's FIR, how police officers fired at Prajapati and the distance from which they fired.
The team also visited Raigadh railway station in Sabarkantha district, from where Prajapati had allegedly escaped from Gujarat police's custody, before being gunned down near Chhapri.
Former investigating officer in the case, R K Patel of the CID, was also present.
Earlier this week, the team of experts from AIIMS and CFSL had also reconstructed the 2004 police encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others in Kotarpur area of Ahmedabad.
Prajapati case was transfered to CBI following Supreme Court orders in April, which came on the petition filed by Narmada Bai, his mother, who alleged that her son was killed in a fake encounter by the police as he was a key eyewitness in the November 2005 killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.
CBI's FIR, filed subsequently, named police officials of Gujarat and Rajasthan.