By IANS
Hyderabad : Senior Gujarat police official Geeta Johri Saturday returned to Ahmedabad after questioning two Andhra Pradesh police officials here in connection with the killing of a Muslim youth in a fake shootout.
During her three-day stay here, Johri, inspector general of police, Crime Investigation Department (CID), questioned E. Radhakrishnaiah, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Gujarat cadre currently on deputation with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Rajiv Trivedi, additional commissioner of police, Hyderabad.
The three-member CID team headed by Johri was here to find out about the activities of a team of Gujarat's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), which tracked down Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi here in November 2005 and took them to Ahmedabad and eliminated them.
In a Supreme Court-directed probe conducted earlier by Johri, it was found that the Gujarat police had wrongly branded Sohrabuddin as terrorist and killed him in a fake "encounter" or shootout.
The revelation led to the arrest of two senior IPS officers from Gujarat and one from Rajasthan last month.
During her Hyderabad visit, Johri also probed the role of Andhra Pradesh police. Some local police officials allegedly helped the Gujarat ATS team by informing them of the couple's movements and also assisted them in intercepting the bus in which they were travelling on the Hyderabad-Mumbai highway on Nov 22, 2005.
Johri, who is to submit investigation report in the Supreme Court on May 15, grilled Radakrishnaiah for over three hours Thursday and then questioned Trivedi, also an IPS officer, the next day.
She also called on Director General of Police M.A. Basit and Hyderabad Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh. She is believed to have sought their permission to question a few more police officials.
Police sources said she might come back to question some more policemen.
Radhakrishnaiah revealed that D.G. Vanjhara, one of the three senior cops arrested in Gujarat, had also visited Hyderabad along with Rajkumar Pandian and other ATS policemen.
The CRPF official had hosted the two officials in his quarters, where they conspired to kidnap Sohrabuddin and his wife.
Though the Andhra Pradesh police chief denied that the state police rendered any official assistance to the Gujarat team, Johri reportedly found out during her investigations that they provided logistical help and even changed the number plates of two vehicles brought from Gujarat to intercept the bus.
The couple had left from Hyderabad for Sangli in Maharashtra when the bus was intercepted at Tadola, a village in Karnataka's Bidar district. The two were later taken to Ahmedabad.
While Sohrabuddin was allegedly killed in a fake 'encounter' on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on Nov 25, his wife was killed a few days later.