Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter

The Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter is an ongoing criminal case in Gujarat state of India, where the police killed a criminal, Sohrabuddin Sheikh on 26 November 2005, when his wife also disappeared. A year later, his friend Tulsi Prajapati, the sole witness, died on December 28, 2006, in another Gujurat police encounter shooting. Sohrabuddin Sheikh had been tied to extorting protection money from the local marble factories. The state government's lawyer, Senior Counsel K.T.S. Tulsi, later admitted before the Supreme Court that the "gun battle" in which S. Sheikh had died had been staged by the Gujarat police. Such encounters are known as "encounter killings" and in this case, as a "fake encounter".

It is suspected that the killing was orchestrated by senior police officers of the Gujarat Police Service, and was allegedly ordered by Gujarat's home minister Amit Shah. Shah, a senior politician in the Bharatiya Janata Party government and a close confidant of chief minister Narendra Modi, was allegedly involved in a large extortion racket that resulted in Sheikh's killing. Modi, as well as Gulab Chand Kataria, a senior BJP leader and ex-minister from the neighbouring Rajasthan state have also been investigated. More than 10 police officers were arrested, along with several top officials.

Cases against Sohrabuddin Sheikh

Sohrabuddin Sheikh was accused of possessing 40 AK-47 rifles in his house in Jharania village in 1995. He is also said to have more than 60 pending cases against him. Sohrabuddin Sheikh was a criminal, and it was found that he had links with the underworld.

Abduction and murder

On November 23, 2005, Sohrabuddin Sheikh was traveling on a public bus with his wife, Kauser Bi, from Hyderabad to Sangli, Maharashtra. At 01:30 am, the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of the Gujarat police stopped the bus and took them away. Bi wanted to stay with him, but was taken to a Disha farmhouse outside Ahmedabad instead.

Three days later, Sheikh was killed in a staged encounter on a highway at Vishala Circle near Ahmedabad. The report filed in the Supreme Court by Geetha Johri of Gujarat police Criminal Bureau of Investigation (CBI) quotes a number of witnesses and builds up a coherent narrative of the killing. The episode said:

"On November 26 at 4 am, ... constable Ajay Parmar was asked to bring a Hero Honda motorcycle lying in the backyard of an ATS office here. Sohrabudin was also brought here. A sub-inspector of Rajasthan police rode the bike for a short distance and jumped off it. As it fell, Sohrabuddin was pulled out of the car and thrown on the road. Four police inspectors fired eight rounds from their service pistols. Vanzara then asked Parmar to take Sohrabuddin to the civil hospital." –Geetha Johri report

Two days after Sheikh was killed, Kauser Bi was transferred to the Arhan farmhouse belonging to Rajendra Jirawala, whose brother was a BJP politician. She was then allegedly strangulated and cremated in Illol, the native village of deputy commissioner of police D G Vanzara. The killing of Kauser Bi was subsequently admitted by the Gujarat State attorneys in front of the Supreme Court.

Exposure and state investigations

The encounter killing was not exposed until a media report made a year later. This report, together with a petition filed in the Supreme Court by Sheikh's brother, led to investigations into the incident. In April 2007, senior police officers were arrested for their connection to the case. In July 2010, Amit Shah was arrested, and it was reported that the CBI was interested in investigating Modi and because of this, the case should be placed under the jurisdiction of a court not in Gujarat.

Media report and Supreme Court petition

The encounter killing was exposed after a few police inspectors boasted about it over drinks with journalist Prashant Dayal. Dayal conducted his own investigations at the farmhouse, and then at Illol, and ascertained that a burqa-clad woman had been cremated there. He then broke the story in November 2006, in the leading Gujarati newspaper, Dainik Bhaskar, and gave details of the encounter and how Bi was killed.

Meanwhile, Sheikh's brother Rubabuddin petitioned the Supreme Court claiming that the Gujarat police had orchestrated the encounter and demanded to be given information on the location of his sister-in-law Kauser Bi. In March 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the state Criminal Investigation Department to conduct a time-bound investigation. Inspector General Geeta Johri was given the task of conducting the investigation, and was to report directly to the court. She gathered evidence that implicated the role of several police officers in the fake encounter. However, it has been claimed that she may have "steered clear of linking them to a political conspiracy". Based on the evidence collected by Johri, DIG Police Rajnish Rai on April 24, 2007, arrested DIG (Border Range) D G Vanzara and Rajkumar Pandian, superintendent of police with the Intelligence Bureau, and M.N. Dinesh of Rajasthan police, who is alleged to have been working at the behest of the marble lobby and BJP political leaders in Rajasthan.

On April 30, 2007, the Gujarat government admitted before the Supreme Court that Kauser Bi had been killed and her body burnt.

The Supreme Court asked the Gujarat government to place before it the inquiry reports prepared by Johri, which had allegedly said that Sheikh was killed in an encounter killing. Johri was removed from the investigation after this report was published. On May 3, 2007, the court asked the government whether Johri had been dismissed from the investigation so that a further probe would not be carried out, and directed it to submit a final report on May 15, the day it will give the final order.

Inspector General's report

Johri was removed from the investigation after her report, which contained a direct reference to "the collusion of [the] State government in the form of Shri Amit Shah, MOS for Home.... [the episode] makes a complete mockery of the rule of law and is perhaps an example of the involvement of [the] State government in a major crime." In Part B of the report, she recorded facts relating to repeated attempts by the accused police officers and Shah to sabotage the Supreme Court mandated enquiry. The report states that Shah "brought to bear pressure" on the enquiry process, with the result that Ms. Johri was directed to suspend the enquiry and the enquiry papers were taken away from her "under the guise of scrutiny." Johri also records that Shah even "directed Shri G.C. Raigar, Additional Director General of Police, CID (Crime & Railways) to provide him with the list of witnesses, both police and private, who are yet to be contacted by CID (Crime) for recording their statement in the said enquiry. Such direction of Minister of State for Home goes beyond the scope of his office, was patently illegal and apparently designed to provide the same list to accused police officers... so as to enable them to take measures in their defence."

The government was asked by the court to give the reason for Johri's removal from the case on May 15. Not finding the Gujarat government's explanations satisfactory, the bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and P.K. Balasubramanyam ruled that Johri would report directly to the Supreme Court. She was reinstated in the same position and also asked to head the fake encounter case against the top police officials from Gujarat. She was also told to ignore the instructions of the Director General of Police in relation to the case.

CBI enquiry

Despite the detailed nature of the Johri report, the Supreme Court felt impelled, given the allegations of involvement by senior politicians, that the case should be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation for investigation. Since 2007, the Gujarat government had strongly resisted these attempts, though the Johri report itself recommended a CBI enquiry.

Media pressure began building up, with calls from organizations such as Amnesty International.. Eventually, on 12 January, 2010, the Supreme Court observed that "the facts surrounding his death evokes strong suspicion that a deliberate attempt was made to destroy a human witness". The court then directed the CBI to take over the probe.

Subsequently, the CBI arrested senior Gujarat Police Service official Abhay Chudasama, who was charged with extortion in partnership with Sheikh. After Chudasama's arrest, the CBI now also charged the now ex-minister Shah with running the extortion racket.

Suspicion of political interference intensified after the evidence handed over to the CBI from the state investigations showed that 331 phone calls by Shah to the concerned police officers had been deleted from the records. After media reports revealed the original records of calls from Shah to Vanzara and other police officers executing the killings, the CBI acquired the original records, and ex-police chief O.P. Mathur, who had been given the plum post-retirement post as director Raksha Shakti University, was indicted for deleting evidence. Shah was named as the "prime accused" in the case.

Meanwhile, BJP ministers, Gulab Chand Kataria and Om Prakash Mathur from the neighbouring BJP-governed state of Rajasthan, was named in the case. A CBI witness had claimed that they were paid Rs. 10 crores by RK Patni, the owner of RK marbles who was acquainted with Indian National Congress leaders, to eliminate Sheikh. Kataria, who visited Gujarat to lobby for the release of Rajasthan police officer Dinesh M.N. in 2007, denied the charges.

See also

• Encounter killings by police
• Ishrat Jahan