Ahmedabad: Gujarat Law Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama was on Wednesday questioned by CBI in connection with the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, agency sources said.
They said Chudasama was allegedly present during the purported meeting that discussed strategies to protect police personnel involved in the fake encounter which were recorded by an accused police official.
The sources said the agency is trying to ascertain the authenticity of the discussions in the tape which was handed over to the trial court along with the charge sheet.
CBI has already questioned Minister of State for Law Pradeepsinh Jadeja and other actors presented during the purported meeting.
The sources said the agency would first compare the voices in the tapes and gather material evidence which corroborates the discussions in the meeting in its attempt to prove the authenticity of the tapes.
Suspended IPS officer G L Singhal, who was among the nine persons who attended the meeting, had submitted two pen drives to investigators containing the recorded conversation of the meeting.
Singhal is now out on bail as the agency failed to file the charge sheet against him in the stipulated 90 days.
The nine people who were present in the meeting held in private chamber of Advocate General Trivedi were Singhal, Singhal`s lawyer friend Rohit Verma, G C Murmu, A K Sharma, then MoS (home) Praful Patel, Jadeja, Chudasama and another accused in the Ishrat case, Tarun Barot.
CBI has also grilled Murmu, secretary to Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and Crime Branch Joint Commissioner A K Sharma.
The agency also examined suspended IPS officer D G Vanzara last week regarding his resignation letter in which he had hit out at the Narendra Modi government for failing to protect the jailed police officers on fake encounter cases.
CBI has named Singhal, Vanzara, suspended IPS officers P P Pandey and Tarun Barot, N K Amin, retired DSP J G Parmar and commando Anaju Chaudhary in the charge sheet, accusing them of murder and criminal conspiracy with regard to the encounter killing of 19-year-old Ishrat, Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in June 2004.
CBI`s probe in the case was still on, it had said when filing the charge sheet in July.
PTI
