Mumbai: All the 22 accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case have been acquitted by Special CBI Court in Mumbai on Friday due to lack of evidence.
Special CBI judge said that the witnesses and proofs were not satisfactory to prove conspiracy and murder in the 2005 encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and aide Tulsiram Prajapati.
The court said that the government machinery and prosecution put in a lot of effort and 210 witnesses were brought but satisfactory evidence didn't come and witnesses turned hostile.
"No fault of prosecutor if witnesses don't speak," the special CBI court said.
The court said that allegation that Tulsiram Prajapati was murdered through a conspiracy is "not true".
Special CBI Judge S J Sharma ruled the prosecution has failed to put forth any "documentary and substantive evidence" to suggest or establish the alleged conspiracy.
Of the accused, 21 are junior-level police officials from Gujarat and Rajasthan. The other was the owner of a farm house in Gujarat where Shaikh and Kausar Bi were illegally detained before they were allegedly killed.
The Gujarat police claimed that Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed in an encounter in November 2005. The police said that Sohrabuddin Sheikh was linked with terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and was allegedly conspiring to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
The CBI said Sheikh, an alleged gangster, Kausar Bi and Prajapati were abducted by the Gujarat police from a bus when they were going to Sangli in Maharashtra from Hyderabad on the night of November 22-23, 2005.
Sheikh was killed in an alleged fake encounter on November 26, 2005 near Ahmedabad, while his wife was killed three days later and her body disposed of, the CBI had said.
It said that a year later, on December 27, 2006, Prajapati was also shot dead by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police in an alleged fake encounter near Chapri on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border.
BJP president Amit Shah, who was also named in the case, was discharged. The court found him innocent and said his name was included in the inquiry for political reasons.
