By IANS
New Delhi : Putting further pressure on the Gujarat government, a rights group Tuesday approached the Supreme Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the killing of yet another Muslim youth in the state in 2002.
The petitioners, Shabnam Hashmi of the Action Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad) and Hindi film lyricist-activist Javed Akhtar, alleged that the crime branch of the Gujarat police in a fake "encounter" or shootout killed Sameer Khan Pathan in Ahmedabad in October 2002.
The same police team had been found to have carried out the staged killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and thereafter raped and killed his wife Kausarbi in Ahmedabad in 2005 – a case that had been under investigation following an apex court directive.
The petitioners said that "from the facts disclosed in the Sameer Khan and Sohrabuddin cases, it also appears that there has been an attempt at the highest level of the Gujarat government not only to cover up but to even abet these cold-blooded murders which appear to have been systematically used to glorify the chief minister (Narendra Modi) and demonise Muslims as terrorists."
The petition alleged that the then inspector general of police (human rights) Tirath Raj had prepared a 20-page inquiry report indicting officials from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), the director general of police and then joint commissioner of police P.P. Pandey for covering up the misdeeds of D.G. Vanjhara, then deputy commissioner of police (crime) and his team.
He had also indicted Vanjhara for the cold-blooded killing of Sameer Khan.
Following the apex-court directed probe into the killing of Ujjain resident Soharbuddin, Vanjhara was arrested last month and sent to judicial custody.
The petition said: "It seems that the said report has been suppressed by senior officers of the government. Later, the inquiry in the encounter was taken away from Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) I.K. Yadav and handed over to DSP H.K. Sharma, who appears to have whitewashed the matter and gave a clean chit to Vanjhara and his team."
The petitioners sought a direction to order an independent investigation by a Special Investigation Team into all staged killings including that of Sameer Khan by the Gujarat police.