After over a month's hesitation, the Gujarat CID (Crime) is said to have handed over the investigation of the Tulsiram Prajapati encounter case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The CID, which was investigating both the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case and the Prajapati encounter, had earlier parted with the Sohrabuddin case after the Supreme Court issued a direction to this effect last January. But it refused to hand over the papers about the Prajapati encounter to the CBI and instead suddenly expedited the investigation, arresting the former Superintendent of Police, Vipul Agrawal, police inspector Ashish Pandya, and four other policemen in this connection.
The Supreme Court, while handing over the Sohrabuddin investigation to the CBI, also expressed reasonable doubts about the fairness of the Prajapati encounter and had asked the CBI to also “look into” the Prajapati incident in case there was a “larger conspiracy.” Both cases occurred within a year and was supposed to be related to each other. It was alleged that Prajapati was eliminated only because he was witness to the Sohrabuddin encounter, which the State government had admitted to be a “fake one.”
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The CID handed over the documents about the Prajapati investigation to the CBI on Monday, the sources said. It was not clear why the CID was holding on to it even after the CBI asked for its papers more than a month ago.