The Amit Shah Files

• Despite SC order that the same trial judge who starts hearing the case should conclude it, Sohrabuddin case has seen three judges
  
• One year after being assigned the trial in the CBI special court, J.T. Utpat was transferred in June 2014
  
• Utpat’s successor Brijmohan Loya died at a government guesthouse in Nagpur on November 30, 2014
  
• Loya’s successor M.B. Gosavi heard Amit Shah’s discharge petition from December 15-17, and delivered a 75-page order on December 30, 2014
  
• Dropping of charges against Shah has led to a flurry of discharge petitions being filed by other accused
  

Gosavi also found no merit in the CBI producing Call Detail Records to show that, on the days Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauserbi were abducted and subsequently killed in 2005, Shah was in regular touch with the police officers who were executing the deed. The CBI came up with details of the outgoing and incoming calls including the duration in seconds (see graphic) to suggest Shah knew what was happening on the ground. While a home minister is expected to give directions to the dgp and home secretary, CBI argued, there was no occasion for him to be in touch with SPs and DySPs. But the CBI court chose to accept Shah’s plea that phone calls proved nothing. He was a proactive, hands-on minister and liked to be in direct touch with field officers, the court was told by his counsel. The trial judge found merit in the submission and held that while the CBI was at liberty to think a powerful minister directly calling field officers was unusual and strange, actually there was no reason to question such conduct when terrorism stalked the world.

Why did Sohrabuddin die? While the CBI produced a witness statement that Amit Shah had allegedly said that Sohrabuddin had “lost the reason (justification) to live”, it still begs an answer. Why would a team including three IPS officers travel to Hyderabad, put up in the guesthouse of the National Police Academy before checking out the next morning? Surely their tour would have been approved by someone? While the team had specific information on their prey’s movement (according to information shared with the Supreme Court, Prajapati may have been instrumental in leading the policemen to him) and knew exactly which luxury bus he was travelling in, they did not nab him at the bus stand in Hyderabad. Nor did they inform Andhra Pradesh police. They followed the bus at a discreet distance before stopping the bus at Zaheerabad. Statements of passengers recorded by the CBI hold that policemen boarded the bus, went straight to seat nos 29 and 30 and asked the two men to get down. Sohrabuddin’s wife was asked to stay back in the bus but she refused, insisting on following her husband.

Sohrabuddin and his wife and Prajapati, his brother claimed, were seen off at Indore bus stand  by family members and it was known to them that the couple would stay with one Kalimuddin in Hyderabad. From Hyderabad they were to travel to Sangli apparently on a pilgrimage.

Significantly, the last crime for which Sohrabuddin was apparently wanted by the police was an incident in the office of Popular Builders, owned by the Patel brothers at Navrangpura, in 2004. Someone had opened fire in the reception. There was no casualty in the incident and the FIR was lodged against unknown miscreants. The receptionist who lodged the FIR did not name anyone and the builders later claimed that henchmen of Sohrabuddin had fired in the air to create panic and terrorise them for extortion. Even Gujarat police later claimed that the firing involved one Sylvester and Prajapati. What was Sohrabuddin doing between 2004 and November 2005? Could the police team have been sent to Hyderabad a year after the ‘firing’ to nab Sohrabuddin? As it is, it is difficult to believe that policemen would take the risk of going into another state in search of ‘name, fame and promotion’. There is another side to it: at the time, there was a hysteria and paranoia built around chief minister Modi that assassins were out to kill him.

The CBI came up with an alternative narrative. The agency suggested that the policemen were close to MoS (Home) Amit Shah, who was the “lynchpin of an extortion racket”. It is hinted by the agency that Sohrabuddin was in the payroll of these police officers and did their bidding. But either he became too greedy and demanding or he started blackmailing the policemen, forcing the latter to eliminate him. Kauserbi and Prajapati, it is suggested, were killed because they were eyewitnesses to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and could have incriminated the policemen.

Hellsangel wrote:For the record, Comrade, do you or don't you believe in the Indian judicial system?