For the first time since the Supreme Court decided to get to the bottom of the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, the Bharatiya Janata Party has come to the defence of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
It described Sohrabuddin as one who was “spreading terror” and associated with the “Dawood and Latif” gang of criminals.
After the “encounter” was staged in 2005, the “story” given by the Gujarat police was that Sohrabuddin was out to kill Mr. Modi and that his plan was foiled after he was killed in an encounter.
Apparently, it was at a meeting at senior BJP leader L.K. Advani's residence early in May that Mr. Modi asked partymen to focus on the Central Bureau of Investigation rather than go on talking about the prices of dal and wheat.
Larger intent
The BJP decided to hit out at the United Progressive Alliance government for its alleged misuse of the CBI ahead of the voting on the cut motion in the Lok Sabha, but it would seem that the larger intent was to defend Mr. Modi. The cut motion was defeated on April 27, and the next day the CBI arrested senior Gujarat IPS officer Abhay Chudasma in the Sohrabuddin case.
The BJP said the UPA had used the CBI to arm-twist leaders of the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal into deserting the Opposition-sponsored cut motion. The first to make this charge was Arun Jaitley, who issued a statement to this effect on April 27, but he did not mention the Gujarat cases.
Following the cut motion vote, the allegation was repeated by several party leaders including Sushma Swaraj and Gopinath Munde. It was about the same time that Mr. Chudasma was arrested, setting off alarm bells in the party.
Advani leads dharna
On Thursday, the party leaders, led by Mr. Advani, sat in dharna in the Parliament House complex to protest the “misuse of the CBI.” Separately party president Nitin Gadkari issued, from Goa, a three-and-a-half page statement on the subject, of which nearly two pages were devoted to defending the Modi government's record.
His case was that there had been many more encounter deaths in other States — Uttar Pradesh headed the list — but the UPA was going after the Modi government.
“The CBI is being misused to suppress [the truth] and defame the Chief Minister. The State of Gujarat is being punished for electing the BJP in successive elections,” Mr. Gadkari said.
He said the UPA government had taken an “extraordinary interest” in entrusting the encounter killing case to the CBI after the Gujarat police filed charge sheets against several senior police officers.”
“Sohrabuddin was earlier accused of spreading terror and was arrested … 24 AK-56 rifles …. were recovered from a well in the fields belonging to Sohrabuddin.”
The issue was also raised in the Rajya Sabha by some BJP members. In the Lok Sabha, Ms. Swaraj was listed to speak on the working of the CBI on Thursday, but it could not be taken up for lack of time.
