Ahmedabad:
In yet another embarrassment to the Gujarat Police, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer has been arrested for his alleged involvement in fake encounter case.
Vipul Aggarwal has been arrested by the CID Crime branch officials, who are investigating the encounter of Tulsimram Prajapati in 2006. This is the first arrest in this case.
Prajapati was one of the key witnesses in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and was rounded up by the police along with Sohrabuddin, and the latter's wife Kausarbi, from a bus on its way to Sangli from Hyderabad.
A team of police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan gunned down Sohrabuddin in a fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in November 2005, and later killed his wife in cold-blood. Prajapati was let off, but was subsequently arrested by the Rajasthan Police in connection with a case booked against him in Raighad in Udaipur district.
From Udaipur jail, Prajapati was escorted to Ahmedabad in connection with another case. Prajapati allegedly managed to escape on his way to Ahmedabad. A team comprising three Rajasthan Police officers and six officers from the Banaskantha Special Operations Group (SOG), led by PSI Ashish Pandya, located him on the outskirts of Amblipar village on Ambaji-Mount Abu road.
According to FIR lodged in Ambaji police station, Prajapati had fired at the police team in which Pandya sustained injuries in his hands. Pandya subsequently shot dead Prajapati in a retaliatory gunfire.
Vipul Aggarwal was the Banaskantha district chief, where the encounter took place.
Incidentally, December 28, 2006 was supposed to be the day when the then IG, CID (Crime) Geetha Johri was supposed to interrogate Prajapati in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.
Prajapati's family members did not buy the police story and approached the court. CID (Crime) then began a probe in the case on the orders of the court and has till date recorded the statements of about 300 people in this connection.