By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: The family of Sohrabuddin Sheikh killed in a fake encounter in November 2005 in Ahmedabad is being harassed for taking up cudgels against the Narendra Modi government.
Speaking to TwoCircles.net, Rubabuddin, brother of Sohrabuddin, said that over 80 policemen in plainclothes came to arrest him at 10.30 p.m. on January 29, 2009, in police jeeps without registration numbers. However, cops did not tell him the reason for seeking his arrest.
But the cops returned back after villagers staged a protest.
According to Rubabuddin, some of the policemen spoke Gujarati dialect, suggesting that it was a joint team of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh police.
Rubabuddin says he was told about a case of threat and intimidation registered against him and his family members – brothers Shahnawazuddin, Nayabuddin and 80-year-old father Anwaruddin – after he wrote to the Supreme Court about the incident.
Rubabuddin has filed a case in the Supreme court demanding further investigation into the fake encounter of his brother and cold blooded murder of Sohrabuddin’s wife Kausar Bi by CBI or some other agency to ensure justice in the case.
The criminal case, according to Rubabuddin, has been registered against him and his family on a complaint by tenant of his friend Virendra Jojoria in Nagada. The tenant alleged that he had been threatened by Rubabuddin and his family members as well as 50 other residents of Jhaniya village in Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh.
Rubabuddin and his family hail from Jhaniya village.
Rubabuddin and his family members have now secured anticipatory bail from Nagda court. Rubabuddin says it is fake complaint as neither he nor any member of his family threatened the Jojoria’s tenant.
“It appears to be a move to pressurize me and my family to back out from the case we have filed against the Gujarat government in connection with Sohrabuddin and wife’s murder by Gujarat and Rajasthan police’’, he says.
Surprisingly, Rubabuddin’s family has strong Sangh Parivar connection. His father Anwaruddin, one of the biggest landlord owning over 1,000 acres of land, was the Ujjain district president of Jan Sangh before 1965 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party subsequently.
Rubabuddin’s elder brother Shahnazauddin is still vice-president of the Ujjain district BJP and secretary of its sports cell. He worked as election officer of Ujjain BJP MLA Dr. Narayan Parmar.
“My mother Zaibunnisa was elected as sarpanch of Jhaniya village on BJP ticket in 2004’’ says Rubabuddin.
“Yet, we are being victimized by the state governments of saffron parties’’, he complains.
“No one from the BJP helped us so far in the fight for justice against Modi government’’, he says. “Instead some BJP men asked me to withdraw the case’’, he complains.
While 13 policemen, including three IPS officers – DG Vanzara and Rajkumar Pandian of Gujarat cadre and Dinesh MN of Rajasthan cadre – were arrested in Sohrabuddin and Kausar BI murder cases and are currently imprisoned in Sabarmati jail following probe by Gujarat CID(crime), Rubabuddin feels that full justice would be possible only if further investigation was transferred to an agency other than Gujarat police.
He has also moved the Supreme court, seeking transfer of the case to CBI. On August 3, a bench of the apex court issued notice to the Gujarat government asking it to show cause why the further investigation in the case be not handed over to Special Investigation team(SIT) headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan. SIT is currently investigating 10 most heinous cases of 2002 communal riots and a separate complaint about involvement of Modi and his ministers in the riots.
The Modi government has to submit reply to the notice within a period of one week.
It was the SIT investigation that led to arrest of a former minister Mayaben Kodnani in Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gamriot cases.
The Supreme Court has also asked the state government to fix the compensation amount to be given to the family of Sohrabuddin.
Sequence of events
*Sohrabuddin, his wife and friend Tulsi Prajapati were picked up from a bus in Andhra Pradesh on Novemberr 22, 2005.
*Brought to Gujarat on November 23, 2005.
*Sohrabuddin gunned down near Vishala Circle on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on November 26, 2005. Police claims that he had come to kill Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia.
*Sohrabuddin’s wife Kausar Bi killed on November 29, 2005 and her body burnt and disposed of in Ilol, Vanzara’s village.
*Investigation into the ‘encounter’ conducted by Anti Terrorist Squad(ATS) of Gujarat police. Case closed down by filing a summary, saying that two other accused, including -Rasool Parti-were untraceable.
*But the case reopened again and handed over to Gujarat CID(crime) after Sohrabnuddin approached Supreme Court in December 2005.
*CID(crime) investigation opened a can of worms proving the episode as murder and not encounter.
*Subsequently, 13 policemen are arrested and put in jail.
*Further investigation are yet to be done in the case.