Ahmedabad:
The noose seems to be tightening around Gujarat's former Home Minister Amit Shah. NDTV has accessed a copy of the CBI's chargesheet against Shah which says the motives behind the Sohrabuddin fake encounter were two-fold - there was a financial motive as well as a political one.
Charges against Amit Shah- Sohrabuddin had started extorting money from politically-connected marble traders
- Marble traders approached politicians in Rajasthan
- On inputs from Rajasthan Police, Gujarat Police registered case against Sohrabuddin
- Amit Shah entrusted the job of eliminating Sohrabuddin to DG Vanzara and Abhay Chudasma
- The false encounter had two motives, political and monetary
The former Gujarat Minister of State for Home was arrested by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin case on July 25 amid high drama. He was taken to the CBI judge A Y Dave's house, who remanded him to 13 days in judicial custody. Shah has been lodged in the Sabarmati jail. (
Read: Modi minister Amit Shah surfaces, arrested for murder in Sohrabuddin case)
Shah, charged with murder by the CBI, arrived at their office in Gandhinagar on July 25 after repeated summons by the central investigating agency.
He had sent in his resignation letter to Chief Minister Narendra Modi a day before his arrest.
Shah has claimed that he is innocent and that charges against him are "fabricated and politically motivated".
"The chargesheet had already been made at the behest of the Congress. It is fabricated and had nothing to do with my summons. I am not afraid of anyone. We will fight the legal battle, and expose those who have tried to wrong us in court", Shah had said before his arrest.
(Watch: Amit Shah- the insider)The CBI on Tuesday arrested Rajendra Jirawala, owner of Arham farm where alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were kept for questioning, in connection with the fake encounter case, agency officials said. (
Read: Kausar Bi killing: Farmhouse owner arrested)
Rajendra, who has a house in Arham farm, was called for questioning on Tuesday. He was arrested later, they said. Rajendra is the brother of Surendra Jirawala, who is a BJP corporator in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi were allegedly shifted to the Arham farm from Disha farm on the night of November 25, 2005.
Kausar Bi was allegedly kept at the Arham farm for the next few days before she was killed, her body was burnt and ashes were thrown in Narmada river near Bharuch.
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, Kauser Bi, from a bus headed from Hyderabad to Sangli. (
Read: Bus ride where Sohrabuddin was last seen alive) 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.