By IANS
New Delhi : A defensive Gujarat government Monday told the Supreme Court that it was to suspend one more police officer for his role in the staged killing of Ujjain resident Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife and friend in 2005.
Appearing before a bench of Justice Tarun Chatterjee and Justice P.K. Balasubramanyam, state government counsel K.T.S. Tulsi also sought its permission to directly approach it to challenge a Gujarat court's order granting anticipatory bail to Deputy Superintendent of Police Narendra Amin.
The bench, while granting permission to the state government to file its petition against the Ahmadabad sessions court order favouring Amin, adjourned the matter for further hearing next Monday.
Sohrabuddin, his wife Kausar Bi and their friend Tulsiram Prajapati were allegedly killed by the Gujarat police – Sohrabuddin in a staged gunfight on the outskirts of Ahmedabad Nov 26, 2005, Kausar Bi two days later, and Prajapati about a year after that.
Gujarat Deputy Inspector General of Police D.G. Vanjhara, who led the police team at the shootout, had announced Sheikh was a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist on a mission to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other prominent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.
Following a petition before the Supreme Court by Sohrabuddin's brother, a probe was ordered into the matter, leading to the arrest of Vanjhara and other senior police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan.
Tulsi apprised the bench of the state government's intention to crack its whip against Amin in face the criticism of the quality of the probe into the staged killings by the state police.
Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, who is assisting the court in the matter as amicus curiae, pointed to a number of gaping holes in the investigation and said they would only facilitate the accused to go free after the trial.
Subramaniam said the charge sheet detailing the probe into the staged killings and filed early this month in the lower court was silent on exactly how Kausar Bi had been killed.
All that the charge sheet says about Kausar Bi, said Subramaniam, is that "she was taken to a secret place at 9 p.m. Nov 28, 2005" and then suddenly it starts talking about her cremation three days later without detailing how she was killed and who killed her.
About Prajapati, the charge sheet merely says, "another person, who may be one Kalmuddin, also stands disposed off", Subramaniam added.
He said that none of the seven Andhra Pradesh policemen, who were present along with Vanjhara's team that allegedly abducted the trio, was made an accused in the case.
He said that the police had not even recovered two of the three vehicles which were allegedly used by Vanjhara's team to abduct Sohrabuddin and his wife from a bus on its way to Sangli in Maharastra from Hyderabad.
Subramaniam said that a head constable had spoken of Amin's role in Kausar Bi's killing but the state government did not even challenge the session's court order granting him anticipatory bail.
He said the government on the contrary rehabilitated him in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the state police.