After late Monday night's arrest of Gujarat cadre IPS officer Vipul Agrawal, two constables have been picked up in connection with the killing of Tulsi Prajapati, in what is believed to be a fake encounter in December 2006.
Investigation of this case is considered an extension of the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case probe. For, Prajapati was a close associate of Sohrabuddin and witness to his murder.
The three arrests, made by the State CID (Crime), were the first in the case of the killing of Prajapati on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border in Banaskantha district in December 2006, about a year after the elimination of Sohrabuddin on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
Mr. Agrawal, who was then DSP of Banaskantha and now Superintendent of Police, Dahod, was arrested in a surprise move. On Tuesday, he was taken to Banaskantha for being presented before a Danta court to seek police remand. Constables Jethabhai Darbar and Vinod Nai were arrested in Patan and Palanpur and taken into the police custody.
The Supreme Court, while transferring the Sohrabuddin case to the Central Bureau of Investigation, had asked it to look into the Prajapati encounter case also. The CBI reportedly asked the CID (Crime) to hand over relevant papers in the Prajapati encounter case but the State police, even after a dressing down from the court in the Sohrabuddin case investigation, was showing reluctance. However, they have suddenly swung into action.
Johri questioned
Meanwhile, Rajkot Police Commissioner Geetha Johri, who as head of the CID (Crime) was investigating the Sohrabuddin case, appeared before the CBI here on Tuesday. CBI sources said questioning of Ms. Johri was incomplete and was likely to be resumed on Wednesday.
Another IPS officer, G. L. Singhal, Superintendent in the Anti-Terrorist Squad, who was Gandhinagar DSP at the time of the Sohrabuddin encounter and was believed to have managed the farm houses in Gandhinagar where Sohrabuddin and his wife, Kausarbi, were initially kept, has also been asked to appear before the CBI on Wednesday.
The two are among the four senior Gujarat cadre IPS officers summoned by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin case.
