Mumbai: The special CBI court here on Wednesday discharged Gujarat police officer Abhay Chudasama from the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter killing cases observing that there was no sufficient prosecutable evidence against him.
According to CBI, Chudasma played a key role in the alleged conspiracy of elimination of Sohrabuddin. It was alleged that he had also threatened key witnesses in the case. CBI had also alleged that the police officer lured Sohrabudin's brother Rubabuddin to withdraw his petition from the apex court and, allegedly, offered him Rs 50 lakh.
The court has so far discharged BJP president Amit Shah, Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria, Rajasthan-based businessman Vimal Patni, former Gujarat police chief P C Pande, Additional Director General of Police Geeta Johri, Yashpal Chudasama and Ajay Patel (both senior office-bearers at the Ahmedabad District Co-Operative Bank) from the case.
Sohrabuddin, a gangster whom the Gujarat police claimed had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, and his wife Kausar Bi were allegedly abducted by Gujarat ATS from Hyderabad on their way to Sangli in Maharashtra.He was killed in a fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005 after which his wife disappeared and was believed to have been done to death. Tulsiram, an aide of the gangster and an eyewitness to the encounter, was killed allegedly by police at Chapri village in Banaskantha district in Gujarat in December 2006.
The Sohrabuddin killing case was transferred to Mumbai in September, 2012 at CBI's request for a fair trial. In 2013, the Supreme Court had clubbed Tulsiram Prajapati's encounter killing case with that of Sohrabuddin.
