Gandhinagar, April 28 (IANS) An Indian Police Service (IPS) officer posted in Ahmedabad was Wednesday arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh killing in faked shootout, taking the number of cops held in the case to 15.
Ahmedabad crime branch's Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Abhay Chudasama, 44, a 1999 batch IPS officer, was one of the conspirators who abducted Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauserbi, the CBI said.
"Chudasama has been concertedly influencing important witnesses to conceal true facts and to give false statements to the CBI hence he has been arrested today (Wednesday) on the oral testimony of witnesses and material objects," said the CBI, whose probe is led by Deputy Inspector General (DIG) P. Kandaswamy.
Chudasama is the first person to be arrested by the CBI after it took over the investigation under the Supreme Court direction on Jan 12.
He is the fourth IPS officer to be arrested in the case. Three other IPS officers are in jail for the killing Sheikh in a fake shootout and the mysterious death of his wife Kauserbi.
The three other IPS officers are DIG D.G. Vanzara, Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rajkumar Pandian, and Rajasthan cadre IPS officer M.N. Dinesh.
Eleven policemen are also in the dock in the case.
The arrests have come in the wake of a petition filed by Rubabuddin Sheikh, brother of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, in the Supreme Court.
In his petition, Rubabuddin stated that his brother and his wife were picked up by a team of the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) and the Rajasthan Special Task Force on November 25, 2005, while the couple was going to Nashik from Hyderabad.
On November 28, 2005, the ATS and the STF claimed that Sohrabuddin was killed in a shootout near Ahmedabad. His wife Kauserbi was missing ever since.
The cops claimed he had come to Ahmedabad with the intention of targeting senior political leaders and to engage in subversive activities. The ATS and STF claimed that he was an operative of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Based on Sheikh's petition, the apex court gave a notice to the central government which asked the Gujarat government to submit a report.
The Director General of Police, Gujarat, entrusted the investigation to DIG (crime) Geeta Johri who submitted two interim reports.
The investigations raised questions about the presence of Sohrabuddin in Ahmedabad on the day the encounter took place on the city's outskirts.
In a related development, just over a year later Tulsiram Prajapati, the third person who was picked up by the ATS and STF alongwith Sohrabuddin and his wife, was killed in a shootout on Dec 26, 2006, near Ambaji in Banaskantha district.
Later, the state government admitted before the apex court that there was prima facie evidence to suggest Sohrabuddin was killed in a shootout.
The case turned out to be a major embarrassment for the Narendra Modi government in the Supreme Court which slammed the Gujarat government's probe saying there were factual discrepancies in ATRs and the charge sheet.
The court then handed over investigation of the case to the CBI, which registered a case in February against Gujarat police officials for criminal conspiracy, murder and abduction.