Ahemdabad, July 29: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s close aide and state’s Home Minister Amit Shah will Thursday face a second round of grilling by the CBI in connection with the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, Kauser bi.in 2005.
In a dramatic twists to the case, Shah denied any knowledge or involvement in the Sohrabuddin case during interrogation by the CBI yesterday.
He was questioned by the central investigative agency at Ahmedabad jail which lasted 6 hours yesterday, during which he was asked 37 questions, all pertaining to the manner in which Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, Kauser, were killed.
Shah was arrested by the CBI over the weekend for murder. He resigned last week as Minister of State for Home in Gujarat.
Meanwhile, CBI has also asked former Gujarat Director General of Police PC Pande to appear before it on August 11. Pande has not been named in the chrageheet but was the DGP when the incident took place.
Sohrabuddin and Kauser were taken into illegal custody by senior Gujarat policemen in November 2005 and killed. The police claimed at the time that Sohrabuddin was shot while he was on his way to assassinate the chief minister, Narendra Modi. In 2007, the government admitted that Sohrabuddin had been murdered in a fake encounter.
What the CBI is investigating now is why Sohrabuddin was killed by senior policemen, some of whom are in jail now. Amit Shah is alleged to have asked first for Sohrabuddin’s death, and then Kauser’s.
—Agencies