It’s police vs police in Tulsi fake encounter case

The CBI has named half-a-dozen IPS officers and many more police officers of lower ranks as witnesses in the Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case. For this reason, the trial of the case is likely to be a battle between the accused police officers and their serving colleagues.

Of course, former minister Amit Shah is named as the prime conspirator and accused No 1 in the Tulsi case chargesheet, copies of which were given to the accused on Thursday on the orders of the Danta judicial magistrate’s court.

Deputy inspector general (DIG) Rajnish Rai, former chief of CID (crime) GC Raigar and senior IPS officer PP Pandey are among the police officers named as witnesses in the CBI charge sheet.

It was tough cop Rajnish Rai who had arrested IPS officers DG Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh MN in 2007 in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. Interestingly, Rai’s affidavit filed by him before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has been annexed to the charge sheet as evidence by the CBI.

The sources said that Rai’s statements can seal the fate of former DGP PC Pande and the then chief of CID (crime) OP Mathur.

According to Rai’s affidavit, the two officers had tried to derail the probe when he was investigating the encounter in which Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed. GC Raigar, Mathur’s predecessor as CID (crime) chief, is another key witness. CBI has claimed in its charge sheet that Amit Shah had held a meeting with PC Pande, Geetha Johri and Raigar and tried to interfere with the investigation being conducted by police inspector VL Solanki into the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter. However, Raigar had refused to accept Shah’s illegal instructions; he was then suddenly transferred from CID (crime), the charge sheet says.

Former ACP of Ahmedabad crime branch, Mayur Chavda, who is currently posted in the chief minister’s security, has also been made a witness in the case. Sources said that Chavda was a probationary officer in Banaskantha in 2006 when the encounter in which Tulsi Prajapati was killed took place. Chavda’s boss at the time, the then Banaskantha SP, Vipul Agrawal, had violated police rules and dispatched him to inspect the site of crime. Aggarwal is currently in jail and is also an accused in the case.

Police inspector NK Barot has also been made a witness by. According to sources, Geetha Johri had allegedly instructed Barot to weed out case papers prepared by Solanki, who was the first officer to crack the Sohrab case. Of course, Solanki is also among the CBI’s star witnesses.

Apart from these officers, IPS officers Manoj Shashidharan, BS Jebalia, IM Desai, Rajen Priyadarshi, GS Malik, KD Patadia, AK Sharma and PN Patel are in the CBI’s list of witnesses.