Kataria was earlier questioned by the CBI in connection with the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Rajasthan Gulabchand Kataria was questioned by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer Sandeep Tamgadge at the CBI-SIT (Special Investigation Team) office in Old Sachivalay, Gandhinagar, for several hours on Thursday in connection with the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case. The CBI will be submitting its final report in the case on June 30.
Kataria was earlier questioned by the CBI in connection with the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. “His questioning started around 3 pm on Thursday and continued till late evening,” a CBI source confirmed. He was summoned to appear before the CBI in connection with the Tulsi encounter case as the investigating agency believes both the Sohrabuddin and Tulsi encounters are linked.
According to CBI sources, Kataria, who was home minister in the Rajasthan government in 2005, was allegedly approached by the influential marble lobby of Udaipur to eliminate Sohrabuddin Shaikh.
While Sohrabuddin was killed in a fake encounter in 2005, his close aide Tulsi was killed in 2006.
The CBI had arrested 17 people, including 14 police officials, in the Sohrab encounter, but it did not arrest anyone in the Tulsi case. Kataria’s subordinate and then state BJP president Om Mathur too has been questioned in the Sohrab encounter case earlier.
Sources close to the development told DNA Kataria had an important role to play when the conspiracy to eliminate Sohrab was hatched by the accused in the case. “Kataria can also provide the missing link that connects the two encounters,” said a source familiar with the development.
Sohrab, Tulsi and Azam Khan, another Sohrab aide, formed a gang in Udaipur in 2003-04 to extort money from marble traders. In December 2004, they killed gangster Hameed Lala who was reportedly close to one of the most prominent marble traders.
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