The Supreme Court will hear on Thursday the Sohrabuddin Sheikh-Kausar Bi murder case, in which the Central Bureau of Investigation has submitted an interim report seeking three more months for completing the probe.
A Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha will hear the petition filed by Rubabuddin Sheikh, brother of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, in 2007. In it, he had prayed for a CBI probe into the death — which the court ordered in January and asked the agency to file a report in six months. The CBI filed the interim report on July 30.
The report, filed in a sealed cover, indicated that the political leadership in both Gujarat and Rajasthan might have been involved in the conspiracy. This might go beyond the former Gujarat Minister of State for Home, Amit Shah, with the CBI screening documents which allegedly “have references to Chief Minister Narendra Modi.”
Informed sources said the CBI also sought permission to re-investigate the killing in an alleged fake encounter of Tulsiram Prajapati, said to be a key witness in the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. As the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Prajapati cases were inter-linked, they must be probed together.
The former DIG, D.B. Vanzara; Rajkumar Pandian, another IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre; and Dinesh M.N. of the Rajasthan cadre are the main accused in the case.
Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were picked up by the police of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh from a bus when they were going to Sangli in Maharashtra from Hyderabad on November 22, 2005.
He was gunned down by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Gujarat police, which claimed that he had come to eliminate Mr. Modi.
The accused were also alleged to have killed Kausar Bi and their accomplice Tulsiram Prajapati to destroy evidence.
