A special CBI court has acquitted all 22 accused in the alleged fake encounter case of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar. Apart from this, all these accused have also been acquitted from the facts of involvement of Sohrabuddin’s associate Tulsiram Prajapati in the alleged encounter.
Due to many ups and down of this case including direct involvement of key political top brass opposition claimed this case alike popular web series ‘Games of Thrones’. Just as no one in the ‘Games of Thrones’ could able to know in which role the character is standing in, and what is going on and what shall happen to next which is exactly as in this case of Sohrabuddin with similar situations too.
Let’s Look into the Facts of Matter This case started on November 22, 2005, when the Sohrabuddin, resident of Gujarat and his wife Kausar including his accomplice Tulsiram Prajapati, were taken into custody on the way while they were going to ‘Sangli’ from ‘Hyderabad.’
Sohrabuddin and Kausar were taken to an unknown farm house in Ahmedabad, where on November 26, Sohrabuddin was assassinated in the alleged fake encounter. Behind this fierce encounter, the shared team of Gujarat and Rajasthan Police was found to be responsible.
After this alleged fierce encounter, a kind of political blame game started for which this dispute is also known as political propaganda. Nationalism and patriotism were kept in the root of this whole controversy as all the officials involved in this encounter including government authorities claimed the underworld don Sohrabuddin and his accompanies were antinational and involved in terror outfit. To convince the encounter, Sohrabuddin was presented as an anti-national and his image also was fabricated as an extremist, which was a major threat to the country’s peace and security.
The family of Sohrabuddin had approached the Supreme Court to investigate the matter, with which many kinds of secrets began to unearth. In this case, the biggest name came to lime light is BJP’s national president Amit Shah and Gulab Chand Kataria. Apart from these, people from Gujarat and Rajasthan including Police constables and IPS officer were found involved in this case.
IPS officer MN Dinesh, Rajkumar Pandian and DG Vanzara, along with Gujarat’s former Home Minister Amita Shah, had to be arrested in this case. During these arrests, the game of nationalism played in a rigid manner. Many unresolved questions, the questions were raised whether it is wrong to kill anti-nationalists like Sohrabuddin and his partner Tulsi Prajapati.
In December 2014, a special CBI court in Mumbai acquitted Amit Shah in this case. Apart from this, 14 accused, including Gulab Chand Kataria and several senior IPS officers, were also acquitted. Now all 22 accused in this case have been acquitted. When this matter began on November 22, 2005, Amit Shah was the Home Minister of Gujarat and Chief Minister of Gujarat was Narendra Modi. At that time there was a Congress government in the center. At present, Amit Shah is the national president of BJP, Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of the country and the BJP government at the Center.
The answer to any political question related to the nation is always stopped with one word and the word is ‘nationality’. But the entire timeline of the Sohrabuddin case leaves behind many questions which have not been answered till today. These are the questions, who killed Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar B? Who killed Tulsiram Prajapati? And what was the purpose of these killings?
Timeline of this Case
November 22, 2005 – Gujarat Police detained another person, including Sohrabuddin Shaikh and his wife Kausar, from a bus near the place ‘Tandola’.
November 26, 2005 – Gujarat ATS and Rajasthan STF on ‘Narol-Vishal’ Road jointly encountered Sohrabuddin in a shootout.
November 29, 2005 – Kausarbi was allegedly killed and his body was set on fire at a village in northern Gujarat.
9 December 2005 – Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin Sheikh filed an application in the Supreme Court in the Kausar’s killing case.
18 May 2006 – Tulsiram Prajapati wrote a letter to the NHRC in which he talked about conspiracy to murder him on Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra Police.
July 4, 2006 – CID began investigating the encounter. December 28, 2006 – Tulsiram Prajapati died in an encounter near Ambalaji.
March 23, 2007 – Rubab’s counsel sought a CBI probe, the Gujarat Police was granted a four-week time.
April 24, 2007 – DIG DG Vanzara, SP Rajkumar Pandian and SP Dinesh of Rajasthan were arrested.
April 1, 2008 – Gujarat High Court ordered the eye witness, police inspector VA Rathod to be arrested.
September 5, 2008 – Trial court ordered further probe on Rubab’s appeal.
25 September 2008 – The High Court rejected bail application of all the accused policemen.
30 September 2008 – The trial court had to decide the charges in this case but the Supreme Court ordered the stay on the trial.
January 12, 2010 – Supreme Court ordered inquiry to Sohrabuddin case by CBI.
May 2010 – CID arrested IPL officer Vipul Agarwal in Tulsiram encounter case.
7 July 2010 – CID arrested Vinasara and Dinesh MN in the Tulsiram encounter case.
July 23, 2010 – The CBI filed a charge sheet against senior police officials and against the Home Minister Amit Shah.
25 July 2010 – Amit Shah was arrested.
October 29, 2010 – Amit Shah got bail.
April 8, 2011- The Supreme Court also handed over the investigation of the Tulsiram encounter case to the CBI.
April 8, 2012 – Supreme Court brought Sohrabuddin encounter and Tulsiram encounter together.
September 27, 2012 – Supreme Court heard this case to transfer to Mumbai-CBI Court.
December 30, 2014 – CBI court acquits Amit Shah on all charges.
November 2015 – Rubabuddin challenged Amit Shah in the Bombay High Court against granting him a free decree, but afterward he withdrew his appeal.
December 2015 – Social worker Harsh Mandar Amit Shah moved the case again to the High Court.
April 2016 – The Bombay High Court dismissed Mandar’s appeal.
August 25, 2016 – CBI court did acquit Pandian.
August 1, 2017 – CBI court did acquit Vanzara.
October 24, 2017 – CBI court in Mumbai set up charges against 22 people.
September 10, 2018 – The Bombay High Court upheld the order to acquittal senior police officers DG Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandey, NK Amin, Vipul Agarwal, Mr. Dinesh and Dalpat Singh Rathod.
December 5, 2018 – CBI court adjourned the case.
December 21, 2018 – CBI court did acquit all the 22 accused completely from the case.
Interestingly on the Day of verdict, the opposition Leader and President of the Congress Party Rahul Gandhi urged, “No one had killed, they just died”.
Article submitted By ANJAN KUMAR SAMAL, Email: anjan.jnss@gmail.com
