I was threatened by CBI: Azam Khan

In a twist to the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case being probed by the CBI, a key witness has told the court that he had been “threatened” by the agency into making false statements in the case.

Witness Azam Khan retracted the statement by filing an affidavit in the special CBI court of additional chief judicial magistrate AY Dave on Thursday.

Khan had earlier said in his statement to the CBI and before a magistrate in Mumbai that police officer Abhay Chudasama (now arrested and suspended) was using Sohrabuddin for an extortion racket in which some political leaders were also involved, and that Tulsiram Prajapati was being threatened after Sohrabuddin was gunned down.

Now, Khan has said in the affidavit that he did not know anything about the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin and the subsequent killing of Prajapati.

He has said he had made the earlier statement after being “threatened” by the CBI to implicate him in the Hamid Lala murder case.

“The CBI officials forced me to give statement even after I told them that I know nothing about the case. They took me to Mumbai and kept me there for a few days. They produced me before a magistrate court, where they made me sign some papers where they had written certain things in Hindi. I was not allowed to read the contents of the papers but was forced to sign the papers,” says the affidavit.

He has alleged that Sohrabuddin had never mentioned to him about anything related to Chudasama and his alleged extortion
business. 

]Moreover, Prajapati also had not revealed anything to him. He has further said that during his entire life he never met Chudasama. Khan also said in the affidavit that Chudasama never told him he had saved Sohrabuddin in the Haren Pandya murder case. He alleged the CBI had added this portion in his statement at the behest of Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia. He has alleged that whatever is written in the statement about Haren Pandya murder case is false.

Khan has stated that he had overheard a telephone conversation of a CBI official with a senior official where Modhwadia's name was being uttered. Khan claimed he came to know that Sohrabuddin was running an extortion racket in collusion with some Gujarat police officers only from media reports. However, Khan's statement, included in the CBI charge sheet, stated that he knew Sohrabuddin operated an extortion racket with help of Chudasama.