By IANS,
New Delhi : The Congress Thursday demanded the resignation of Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah after he was been summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the alleged fake shootout of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.
Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said: “It is a matter between the accused, investigative agency and the court. All that we are interested in is that justice should be done.”
Tewari said that the summons to the Gujarat minister had created a constitutional peculiarity.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister Shah was Thursday summoned by the CBI in connection with the 2005 killing in Ahmedabad.
The Gujarat government reacted cautiously to the development, with its spokesperson and Health Minister Jaynarayan Vyas saying that the law will take its own course.
“It does create a serious and profound constitutional peculiarity that a minister who is entrusted with upholding the rule of law in a province of the country is summoned for questioning in an alleged fake encounter case which is essentially an acronym for murder,” he Tewari said, adding that the party leaves it to the BJP to take a decision about continuation of Shah as a minister.
Tewari said that ever since BJP government came to power in Gujarat “specially after (Narendra) Modi became the chief minister, there have been various instances (of fake encounters)”.
Shah has been accused of calling up policemen involved in the killing of Sheikh, who police claimed was a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative. The CBI collected the phone records of the minister in connection with his role in the execution of the alleged staged killing, sources said.
The Gujarat anti-terrorism squad (ATS) has been accused of killing Sheikh in a staged shootout Nov 26, 2005, in Ahmedabad. His wife Kauserbi has been missing ever since.
On Jan 12, the Supreme Court ordered the CBI to register a case against policemen from Gujarat and Rajasthan involved in the killing. A case was registered Feb 1.