Sadik encounter: Brother demands further probe by CBI

A special court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the 2003 encounter of Sadik Jamal, after allowing a petition by his brother seeking further investigation in the case, including that of the "role" played by Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Special CBI court Judge V K Vyas asked CBI to file reply and posted the matter for hearing on June 5. Applicant Shabbir Jamal alleged that the CBI (which filed charge sheet in December, 2012) did not investigate some crucial aspects of the "conspiracy" to kill his brother.

"The CBI has not investigated the role of officers of Mumbai Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau and Joint Director of Central IB Rajendra Kumar who were involved in the conspiracy to paint Sadik as a terrorist by generating false inputs," the petition said.

"As per the CBI charge-sheet, Sadik was brought by the accused cop Tarun Barot from Mumbai and was kept in illegal custody in a bungalow in Shahibaug area of the city, but the agency has not even probed officers of (Ahmedabad) crime branch," it further alleged.

Further, the petition says that as Sadik was killed as a part of a political conspiracy, the CBI should also investigate the roles of the Gujarat Chief Minister and the then Minister of state for home.

Sadik, a resident of Bhavnagar in Gujarat, died in police encounter here on January 13, 2003. The crime branch had claimed that he was a terrorist who had come here to kill Modi and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia.

But on a petition filed by Shabbir, which alleged that the encounter was fake, the Gujarat high court in 2011 had directed the CBI to take over the probe. Eight police officials, including Barot, have been arrested in the case by the CBI so far.