Ahmedabad: CBI has made nine IPS officers witnesses in the Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case, to nail former minister of state for home Amit Shah, and top police officers including ex-DGP P C Pande and IGP Geetha Johri.
After an investigation of over 18 months, CBI, in the chargesheet filed on September 4, has named Shah and 19 other accused, which includes top cops Pande, Johri, O P Mathur, Rajkumar Pandian, D G Vanzara and R K Patel.
They are accused to have conspired to eliminate Prajapati, a witness to the killing of gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh in a fake encounter.
Nine Gujarat Cadre IPS officers figure as witnesses: G C Raigar(then ADGP, CID Crime), Rajneesh Rai, I M Desai (then in CID crime and was supervising the case), P P Pandey (ADGP, CID crime), V V Rabari (former head of CID crime), Rajan Priyadarshi (retd), Sudhir Sinha (then heading state IB), A K Sharma (DIG Crime Branch Ahmedabad) and Mayur Chavda (DySP, Chief Minister`s Security).
CBI officers said Raiger and Rai were prime witnesses.
Chargesheet says in mid-December 2006, Amit Shah (then MoS Home) called a meeting in his office -- attended by Pande, Johri and Raiger -- to express displeasure over the investigation of Sheikh case. Shah asked Johri to destroy certain documents.
"While Raigar requested that he be kept out, Pande and Johri were willing collusive members of these conspiratorial instructions," CBI says.
Rajneesh Rai arrested senior police officers D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh M N in Sohrabuddin case in July 2007. Rai, in an affidavit before Central Administrative Tribunal, has alleged that Pande and Mathur tried to scuttle the investigation.
Sources said CBI has recorded the statements of 13 witnesses in four states. They include N K Barot (then Police Inspector in CID crime and Reader PI with Johri).
PTI
