The Narendra Modi government in Gujarat suffered a setback on Tuesday, with the Supreme Court directing a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the 2005 Soharabuddin Sheikh encounter case. A bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and Aftab Alam in its verdict accepted the demand for the probe on the plea of the brother of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was allegedly killed in a fake encounter by the Gujarat Police.
The decision is a major blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat, which has been consistently maintaining that it's Special Investigating Team was conducting the probe in an impartial manner.
The Gujarat police had initially claimed Sohrabuddin was a gangster involved in extortion and had nearly 54 cases registered against him in different states. It was claimed that he was killed in an encounter with the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the Gujarat police and the Rajasthan police. After the killing, Sohrabuddin's younger brother Rubabuddin wrote a letter to the chief justice of India, alleging that the killings were stage managed.
The apex court treated the letter as a PIL and ordered a probe. Subsequent investigations by the Gujarat police established the fake encounter theory, resulting in half-a-dozen officers being arrested and suspended. Apart from Sohrabuddin's killing, it also came to light that the deceased's wife Kauser Bi had also been detained along with him and killed.
The Supreme Court on August 2009 directed the Gujarat government to pay an 'interim ex gratia' of Rs 10 lakh to the family of slain alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, even as the state government opposed any move to entrust investigations of the killings to the Special Investigation Team.
Suspended Deputy Inspector General D G Banjara and R K Pandiyan (Gujarat cadre Indian Police S officers) besides Dinesh M N (Rajasthan cadre IPS officer) are the main accused in the encounter killing. Deputy Superintendent of Police N K Ameen is also an accused in the case. All of them are in judicial custody.
Sohrabuddin along with his wife Kauser Bi and another person was picked up during a joint operation by the police of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh from a bus on their way from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra on November 22, 2005. He was gunned down allegedly in a fake encounter by the Gujarat police's Anti-Terrorist Squad which claimed that he had come to the city to eliminate Chief Minister Modi. The accused cops are also alleged to have killed Soharabuddin's wife Kauser Bi and their accomplice Tulsi Ram Prajapati to destroy evidence.