Sohrabuddin case: Politicians not involved

The Gujarat CID, probing the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in which over a dozen policemen including IPS officers have been arrested, has not found any political link to the stage-managed murder, a senior official of the agency said on Thursday.

"As of now there is no political link to the murder of Sohrabuddin. The CID has probed into various allegations regarding the role of politicians of both Gujarat and Rajasthan but nothing has emerged in this area yet," the official told PTI.

The agency has also not been able to establish motive behind the killing of Sheikh, an alleged extortionist, in November 2005 by a joint team of Gujarat ATS and Rajasthan Special Task Force.

Sohrabuddin had criminal cases against him but he was projected by Gujarat and Rajasthan police to be a Lashkar-e-
Taiba terrorist who was in Gujarat to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Several theories did the rounds after the investigation gathered steam earlier this year with the role of politicians
and businessmen from the marble industry of Rajasthan and Gujarat also being mentioned in media reports as being those behind Sheikh's encounter.

While one theory claimed he was killed by the police on the request of the marbel lobby of Rajasthan as he used to
extort money from them, another was that he was eliminated by DIG D G Vanzara and labelled a terrorist as it would boost the image of his political masters.

Vanzara, who was with the Anti-Terrorist Squad, is one of the arrested policemen. 

The official did not elaborate on the findings of CID on the politician-businessman link to the case, saying details would be in soon-to-the filed chargesheet.