Amit Shah, ex-Guj DGP named in Prajapati charge sheet

Former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, was among 20 people named by the Central Bureau of Investigation in its charge sheet in the Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case for allegedly entering into criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.

Former state police chief P C Pande, IPS officers O P Mathur, D G Vanzara and Geetha Johri and Dy SP R K Patel were also also named in the charge sheet submitted in the court of judicial magistrate D R Joshi at Danta in Banaskantha district.

The three senior IPS officers named in the charge sheet included two who retired.

The charge sheet, however, was not taken on record by the court due to question of jurisdiction.

The court will decide in the matter after conducting hearing next Monday.

Prajapati, an eye witness in the encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, was killed in fake encounter allegedly by Gujarat police at Chhapri, in Banaskantha district on December 28, 2006.

In a major blow to the ruling BJP, Shah, who was arrested by the CBI in the Sheikh encounter case in 2010, has now been charged in the second fake encounter case of Prajapati for murder, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence as also under the provisions of Arms Act.

Shah is out on bail in the Sheikh encounter case but has been barred from entering Gujarat by the Supreme Court.

Former DGP Pande, who was widely criticised for his role as police commissioner of Ahmedabad during the 2002 riots, has also been made accused in the Prajapati case. Pande was chief of state police when the encounter took place in 2006.

Mathur, retired ADGP who was then (in 2006) heading CID crime and the then IGP CID crime Johri, who was heading investigation in the Sheikh case, have also been booked as accused in the case.

Mathur currently heads Raksha Shakti University of the state government, while Johri is managing director of Gujarat Police Housing Corporation.

The other two who have been added by the CBI in its charge sheet includes retired DySP Patel, Investigating Officer of Tulsi encounter case and Rajasthan Police inspector Abdul Rehman.

In its charge sheet, the CBI has also retained names of 14 police officers including four IPS officers Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian, Dinesh M N and Vipul Agarwal, who were earlier made accused in the same case by state CID.