CBI asks for Sohrabuddin case to be transferred out of Gujarat

Ahmedabad: The CBI on Friday submitted its status report on the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case to the Supreme Court.

NDTV has learnt that the CBI in its status report has asked for the case to be shifted out of Gujarat as it feels the investigation or the trial cannot be carried out in a fair and impartial manner in the state.

The CBI is also learnt to have said in its report that it will investigate the fake encounter of Tulsiram Prajapati, the man who allegedly witnessed the killing of Sohrabuddin.

Sohrabuddin and his wife, Kauser, were abducted and killed allegedly by senior police officers from Gujarat in November 2005. (Sohrabuddin killed for money and politics: CBI chargesheet)

The police insisted Sohrabuddin was a terrorist on his way to assassinating Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The Gujarat government later admitted this was not true, based on an inquiry by the state police's Criminal Investigations Department or CID.(Read - Amit Shah case: Why CBI wants to interrogate Modi)

What the CBI is now trying to unravel is whether the policemen who killed the couple were acting on the instructions of politicians like Amit Shah, a close aide of Modi's now arrested for murder. (Read: CBI says Amit Shah is not cooperating)

The CBI was assigned the case in January this year by the Supreme Court, which found that the CID's investigation seemed to protect politicians. Senior police officers who handled that probe, including Geeta Johri, who headed it, have been summoned for interrogation in August. The CBI was given six months to complete its investigation; it will ask for a three-month extension today.

The CBI also wants to handle the investigation into the death of Tulsiram Prajapati. He was allegedly a passenger on the bus from which Sohrabuddin and Kauser were kidnapped by the Gujarat Anti-Terror Squad (ATS).

Along with the couple, he was illegally detained at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Sohrabuddin was killed on November 26, Kauser on November 29, 2005. Tulsiram, the main witness to their murders, was killed a year later in a police encounter. DG Vanzara, a senior policeman arrested for murdering Sohrabuddin and Kauser was in charge of the area where Tulsiram was later shot. Vanzara is in jail.