Amit Shah was the mastermind in entire conspiracy, says CBI

July 25, 2010 12:38 am | Updated November 28, 2021 09:16 pm IST - GANDHINAGAR:

Amit Shah. File photo

Amit Shah. File photo

The Central Bureau of Investigation, probing the Sohrabuddin fake encounter and the murder of his wife Kausarbi, has held the former Gujarat Minister of State for Home, Amit Shah, as the mastermind in the entire conspiracy.

As reflected in the charge sheet, the CBI was considering the former Minister a common criminal holding him as the prime accused along with the former DIG, D.G. Vanzara, and Deputy Police Commissioner Abhay Chudasma, and claimed that elimination of Sohrabuddin, a gangster extorting money from businessmen, also had a “political angle.” According to the charge sheet, the murder of Kausarbi was only consequential and was not part of the main conspiracy.

The charge sheet has also linked Tulsi Prajapati's encounter a year later to the Sohrabuddin-Kausarbi elimination and has claimed that the third person travelling with the duo in the bus from Hyderabad to Sangli when they were picked up by the Gujarat police was Prajapati and not Sohrabuddin's friend Kalimuddin as concluded by the State CID (Crime), which probed the case earlier.

As per the charge sheet, Mr. Shah was not only in the knowledge of all the events, but also was the mastermind in the entire operation and had directed Mr. Vanzara and Mr. Chudasma to eliminate Sohrabuddin at the request of some BJP leaders from Rajasthan where the gangster was allegedly harassing some rich and influential marble dealers for extortions.

At Mr. Shah's behest, Mr. Chudasma, who was in touch with Sohrabuddin, entrusted the gangster with the task of extorting money from two builder-brothers in Ahmedabad with the dual purpose of collecting some money and to register a case against Sohrabuddin in Gujarat to plan his elimination later.

Chudasma later took the help of Prajapati to locate Sohrabuddin and was informed of his plans to travel by bus from Hyderabad. Prajapati was only told that the political heat against Sohrabuddin had become too hot in Rajasthan for him to survive for long and that the Gujarat police would only keep him in jail for a few months to “protect him.”

After Prajapati and later Sohrabuddin were picked up from the bus, Kausarbi too came down and insisted to be with her husband. She was told to resume her seat in the bus, but she refused. The Gujarat police were forced to take her along and brought her to a farm house in Gandhinagar with her husband while Prajapati was dispatched to Udaipur by another car from Bulsar after entering Gujarat.

The charge sheet claimed that Mr. Shah had later instructed the police to kill Kausarbi also. According to the CBI, she was killed in the farmhouse in Gandhinagar and later her body was taken to Illol in Sabarkantha district, the native village of Vanzara, where her body was burnt but the ashes and bones were not buried in the same village, as believed by the CID (Crime) and made futile attempts to unearth, but were collected in vessels and washed in the Narmada river near Broach.

It also claimed that Prajapati's encounter a year later near Ambaji on Gujarat-Rajasthan border was also planned by Mr. Shah as he was a witness in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter and had the knowledge of Kausarbi's murder. Along with the charge sheet, the CBI has submitted Mr. Shah's mobile call list with the co-accused police officers during the days preceding and following the fake encounters.

Disputes CBI claim

State Cabinet spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas, however, contested the CBI's claim on this count and said the Home Minister was expected to remain touch with key police officers all the time for the maintenance of law and order situation in the State and it was surprising that his talking to the police officers had been taken as proof of his alleged involvement in a “conspiracy.”

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.