Prajapati encounter: 4 Rajasthan cops arrested

Four Rajasthan Police personnel, accused in the death of Tulsiram Prajapati, a key witness in the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, were arrested after they surrendered in the Danta court in Gujarat's Banaskantha district on Friday.

ASI Narayansingh Chauhan, constables Dalpatsingh Rathod, Kartarsingh Jat and Yuddhveersingh Rajput, posted at Udaipur were sent to judicial custody by chief judicial magistrate S S Joshi.

According to deputy SP R K Patel, investigating officer in the Prajapati encounter case, the four men were shown as absconding accused in the case in the charge sheet filed last month by the state CID probing the case.

Their remand would be sought at a later stage, he said, adding with their arrest total number of accused arrested in the case has reached 13.

Gujarat Police allegedly killed Prajapati in an encounter near Ambaji in Danta taluka in Banaskantha when he tried to escape from custody while being shifted from Rajasthan in December 2006.

The key accused in the case include IPS officers D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandiyan, Dinesh M N and Vipul Agarwal, along with five lower ranking cops, who are facing charges of criminal conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, destruction of evidence and forgery.

The charge sheet said Vanzara, range DIG at that time, and Dinesh, who was SP of Udaipur, had conspired to kill Prajapati but it does not throw light on the motive behind the conspiracy.

Vanzara, Dinesh and Pandiyan are also accused in the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin and murder of his wife Kausar Bi.

For

interrogation, the CID had got transfer warrant of Vanzara and Dinesh M N, who were lodged in the Sabarmati central jail in Ahmedabad, however, they are yet to take custody of Pandiyan.

According to the charge sheet filed last month, ASI Narayansingh and constable Yuddhaveersingh from Udaipur took Prajapati to Ahmedabad in connection with a criminal case on December 26, 2005.

On the same day after the court proceedings were over, they departed along with Prajapti back for Udaipur about 11 pm by Udaipur Mail from Ahmedabad, it said.

As per plan the escorting cops filed a fake complaint with the railway police station outpost in Himmatnagar in the wee hours on December 27, 2005, which said that two unidentified persons had on gun-point managed to escape with Prajapati near Raygadh railway station, it said.

Later Prajapati was imprisoned at some unidentified location before he was taken to Chhapri village near Ambaji with his hands tied on December 28, 2005, in a private car.

Another accused, the then ASI Ashish Pandya who was present there shot from an unlicensed pistol on the bonnet of jeep and later shot himself in the arm to establish that Prajapati had opened fire, the charge sheet said.

Meanwhile, Narayansingh and Yuddhaveersingh fired at Tulsiram who died on the spot.

Later a report of firing for self protection was filed with Ambaji police station at 8.15 am the same day. The charge sheet said all the while from December 25 to 28 Vanzara, Pandiyan, Aggarawal and Dinesh were in contact with each other on mobile phones.