Ahmedabad, May 10: Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) plans nationwide demonstrations on May 12 against the alleged ‘misuse’ of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) by New Delhi, a series of advertisements and posters questioning the probe agency’s move to arrest police officers in Sohrabuddin case have appeared in local newspapers and busy crossroads in Gujarat cities.
During a media briefing on May 2, Gujarat BJP president R.C. Faldu, national vice-president P. Rupala and Rajya Sabha member Vijay Rupani had said that the CBI was acting at the behest of the Congress-led UPA government to spoil the image of the Gujarat government. They added that the federal agency was trying to demoralise the state police by arresting its officers amid Gujarat’s golden jubilee celebrations.
The three leaders had not only dubbed the CBI as ‘Congress Bureau of Injustice’ but also threatened to launch a statewide agitation against the CBI’s crackdown on the state’s police force.
All major Gujarati newspapers of the city carried the advertisements alleging that the Congress was using the CBI as its tool. Numerous posters have been pasted on the walls in different areas of the city criticising CBI’s actions in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.
The advertisements issued in the name of Jan Adhikar Samiti, Vadodara, said, “While terrorists are being allowed to move freely in the country, police officials are being sent behind bars”.
Questioning the CBI probe, the ad sarcastically said that ‘Delhi Durbar’ (the UPA government) is favouring the ‘terrorist’’ Sohrabuddin under pressure from its ‘vote-bank’(meaning Muslims), thus making an attempt to politicise and communalise the whole issue.
Reacting to the advertisements, Gujarat Congress president Siddarth Patel said the appearance of such advertisements was a “serious issue.” He demanded that investigations be launched to find out who was behind the Samiti and that action be taken against them. “This is an attempt to arouse feelings of people of the state against the country’s premier investigating agency CBI and the Centre,” Patel said.
“The CBI is conducting inquiry in the case under the supervision of Supreme Court and the Centre has no direct or indirect role to play in it,” Patel said in a statement.
Sohrabuddin, a gangster, and his wife Kauserbi were picked up from Hyderabad by a team of cops from Gujarat and Rajasthan on November 22, 2005. He was eliminated in a fake encounter in Ahmedabad three days later and his wife was also killed soon after.
Meanwhile, the Gujarat IPS officers’ association decided to offer financial aid to affected families of the arrested police officers and also provide protection if they felt insecure.
Association general secretary Vinod Mall told that he and other office-bearers would regularly visit homes of the jailed officers.
-Agencies