Ahmedabad, April 30: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said IPS officer Abhay Chudasama, who was arrested on Wednesday, ran an extortion racket with Sohrabuddin Sheikh and was the prime conspirator in the abduction and murder of Sheikh and his wife Kauserbi.
The CBI, while seeking his remand on Thursday, told an Ahmedabad court that the IPS officer had also offered Rs 50 lakh to Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin to withdraw the petition in the Supreme Court and threatened him with dire consequences when he refused to do so.
The CBI Court of magistrate V B Barot sent Chudasama, 45, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch, to six-day CBI custody.
The CBI stated that its investigations revealed that Chudasama knew Sohrabuddin very well since 2001 and used to operate through him to extort money from various traders.
Amitabh Thakur, the chief investigating officer in the case, said in the remand application that Chudasama had extorted Rs 40 lakh in 2001 from two persons for settlement of business disputes. Sohrabuddin, too, was involved in the deal. The two were fired upon by Sohrabuddin in 2004, an incident the CBI claimed was stage-managed by Chudasama.
The CBI said its investigations revealed that Chudasama, an ‘encounter-specialist’ who oversaw the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts probe, had eliminated Sohrabuddin for material gains. It added that the IPS officer—who was Valsad Superintendent of Police then—had engineered the abduction of Sohrabuddin and his wife while they were on their way from Andhra Pradesh to Maharashtra.
They were located with the help of an acquaintance, Tulsiram Prajapati, who, too, was later killed in an encounter. The CBI added that Chudasama extorted money from traders and gangsters after the Sohrabuddin killing, threatening them with the same fate.
The CBI also told the court that Chudasama was obstructing its investigation and clandestinely monitored its progress, threatening and influencing witnesses to conceal facts from the CBI.
The CBI added that he did so to protect the syndicate which used to extort money and conceal his and their links with Sohrabuddin.
Chudasama’s lawyer called the arrest illegal saying the Supreme Court had not conferred the CBI with powers to arrest anybody in the case.
The arrest of Chudasama, a state police service officer who was promoted to the IPS, is the first by the CBI after it took over the case in January. Three IPS officers—Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief DG Vanzara, his deputy Rajkumar Pandyan and Dinesh M N—were earlier arrested in the case.
Sheikh was killed in an encounter on November 26, 2005 on the Narol Highway in Ahmedabad. While the ATS and CID initially probed the case, the Supreme Court handed it over to the CBI in January.
—-Agencies