Will Rajnish Rai's statement nail culprits of Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter

IPS officer Rajnish Rai's truthspeak may push PC Pande, OP Mathur, GL Singhal and other cops into troubled waters for creating obstructions in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. Rai has put forward all sequences of incidents that happened with him in a bid to tone down the probe into the case.

Rai had started investigating the case when he was posted as the DIG of CID (crime) during March 9 to May 5, 2007. He earned the state government's wrath when he arrested three IPS officers - DG Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh Kumar of Rajasthan police - and was transferred from the CID. DNA's Nikunj Soni throws light on the allegations put forward by Rajnish Rai against the cops.

The Supreme Court on January 21, 2006 directed police officer PC Pande to start inquiry into the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and the subsequent disappearance of Sheikh's wife Kauserbi. Pande did not take actions for six months on the SC order till the Registry of the SC had sent three reminders and handed over the order of inquiry to the CID.

Even after entrusting the probe, the preliminary enquiry was also not done for nine months.

Pande continued to avoid conducting a proper investigation and ordered it only on January 25, 2007. But before the CID (Crime) could take up investigation, Pande cancelled this order on February 2, 2007. This act had created a situation where investigations into the case could not proceed further. Pande had done this for reasons other than professional interest is evident from the fact that he used the filing of the Rubabuddin, Sohrabuddin's brother who sought a probe in to the case by the CBI, as a justification for cancellation of the order for further investigation in to the case. (The first probe was ordered by the apex court on letter written by Rubabuddin Sheikh.)

In the first week of February 2007, GC Raigar, the then ADGP, CID was transferred and OP Mathur was given additional charge. Statement of CID inspector VL Solanki discloses that when official record of CID (Crime) pertaining to this case was conspired to have been tampered sometime between the month of November-December 2006. Raigar had lost his nerve and begged to be
excused.

Mathur said that issues should be first discussed and informally agreed upon and thereafter recorded on file. This advice of Mathur was contrary to the principle of recording things on noting section of the file by each officer as he or she sees things; the senior in the hierarchy being always at liberty to disagree with and overrule the junior and pass reasonable speaking order.

I (Rai says) had put up a note on March 12, 2007 to constitute a team of officers for investigation of the case, and seeking other secretarial, logistic and infrastructural support, and followed it up with several letters. This note was kept pending for several days, and some action was taken on my suggestions only when the SC issued notice to the government in this matter on March 19, 2007.

Uncalled for restrictions were placed on the movement of the officers in the team when they had to move out of the state for investigation. All such movements of officers were promptly communicated to the accused persons. Progress in investigation was also communicated to the accused police officers, allowing them the opportunity to influence witnesses and tamper with crucial evidence.

I (Rai says) sent a proposal to Pande through Mathur requesting him to delegate powers of allowing officers to go outside the state for investigation of the case to me, as seeking permission at every such occasion lead to avoidable delays and, more importantly, it also jeopardised the confidentiality of the investigation. But no orders were passed on this request by Pande till I was removed from the investigation of this case.

Pande had issued directions to induct officers in the investigating team for investigation of this case, who were later found to be involved in the commission of the crime. He had ordered induction of Abhay Chudasama, then DCP of crime branch and was also desirous of including Dr NK Amin, Dy SP, in the investigation team.

Although, Dr NK Amin assisted me in the investigation for a few days but my insistence that nobody who had ever worked with the suspected senior police officers should be part of the investigating team ensured that he was not included in the investigation team. Most strangely, both Chudasama and NK Amin were later arrested in this case and are currently in judicial custody.

Rajkumar Pandian, accused in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, and other accused officers were trying to influence the Apte family who were prime witnesses of the abduction of Sohrabuddin and his wife and trying to extract retraction from them, and Rajkumar was requesting me to change the statement of the Apte family. GL Singhal, then SP, Gandhinagar had influenced the witnesses and extracted retraction from the key witnesses of
this case.

I (Rai says) had written a letter to the Director, Directorate of Forensic Science (DFS), Gandhinagar for seeking assistance in the reconstruction of the scene of offence of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati cases. But Pande did not like the idea of reconstructing the scene of offence as he apprehended that such a scientific reconstruction of the offence would clearly demonstrate that the police version of the encounter
was untrue.  

Pande used to edit the draft of Action Taken Report (ATR) that I put up to him with the express attitude of deleting and modifying those sentences and phrases which were inconvenient for him or for the government or for the accused officers.

I (Rai says) apprehended that my plans to arrest the accused officers would be shared with those very officers, which would have prevented me from arresting them. Also, I was fully aware of the attitudes and actions of the Mathur and Pande, which were contrary to the conduct of fair and
impartial investigation.

Despite the fact that my presence in Delhi was not required, Pande compelled me to go to Delhi on April 26, 2007 afternoon with the clear intention of preventing the interrogation of the accused police officers (Vanzara and others).

I (Rai says) moved an application before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Ahmedabad seeking directions for subjecting the arrested senior police officials for narco-analysis to unearth the larger conspiracy. Mathur and Pande were not happy with my action and fearing the disclosure of the entire truth, decided to completely remove me from the investigation of these cases.