Fake, Encountered

Snail's Pace

Contrary to belief, the probe into the fake encounter case is surely not on fast track:

• Very little material evidence has been collected
  
• Statements of the accused as well as key witnesses have not been recorded before a magistrate
  
• Confessions before an investigating officer can always be retracted in court
  
• Excavations in Vanzara's farmhouse have drawn a blank
  
• No witness has turned approver

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Forget newspaper headlines of confessional statements by the police officers involved and other breakthroughs, the investigation into the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case is floundering. With the May 15 deadline for the submission of its status report to the Supreme Court fast approaching, the state CID is doing what it can best to prove that its investigations are on stream. But according to police sources, there is very little material evidence that has been unearthed. Instead, statements of the accused and several witnesses have been recorded in an effort to show that the investigations are on course and that a CBI probe is not warranted as demanded by the Centre as well as Sohrabuddin's brother. The apex court is likely to decide on this on May 15.

Legal experts as well as police officers familiar with the investigation process are intrigued that the confessional statements of all the police officers and men arrested so far have been recorded only by the state CID. No statement has been put on record under Section 164 of the criminal penal code before a judicial magistrate. In effect, main accused DIG D.G. Vanzara's reported admission to having killed Sohrabuddin in a fake encounter can be denied later as can all confessions made before an investigating officer by others involved in the encounter. "The statements recorded by the police mean virtually nothing when it comes up before a court. In this case one must remember the people involved are senior officers who know the loopholes of the law and will exploit them to their advantage," a senior police officer told Outlook.

In the absence of any unretractable confessional statement and with no witness turning approver as yet, strong corroborative evidence is what is required. But that has not been easy to come by. Attempts at getting proof of the murder of Sohrabuddin's wife Kauserbi too have drawn a blank so far. The excavations at the well in Vanzara's farmhouse at Illol village have not yielded any result. It was believed that after killing Kauserbi and setting her body on fire in the ravines nearby, her remains had been buried in the well which was later filled up and a room constructed over it. Samples taken from the excavations at the site and put through forensic tests have not yielded any proof of the murder.

The two anti-terrorist squad (ATS) constables Ajay Parmar and Santram Sharma, and inspector N.H. Dabhi, are key accomplices who were belatedly arrested on May 7. Parmar worked along with superintendent Rajkumar Pandian, one of the accused officers along with Vanzara. Santram was behind the wheel of the vehicle used by Vanzara, Pandian and others to go to Hyderabad to trail Sohrabuddin from where they intercepted the bus in which he and his wife Kauserbi were travelling. Inspector Dabhi was present when the fake encounter took place in Ahmedabad. All three have been taken to Hyderabad by the CID team to corroborate the sequence of events. Interestingly, when CID's Rajnish Rai was heading the investigations before he was suddenly asked to discontinue, he had seriously considered turning the junior cops approvers. But that's another story.

Rai had set the alarm bells ringing in the state government and the police with his flash arrest of three top officers—Vanzara, Pandian and M. N. Dineshkumar. He even moved the Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate's court for conducting narcoanalysis and brain mapping tests on the three officers. Rai decided to directly approach the court for the tests without taking the government lawyer into confidence. This led to his being asked to report to Gujarat's inspector general of police Geetha Johri, who was put in charge of the investigations. But Rai declined. Reason: during his stint in the CBI he had investigated Johri's husband, a forest service officer.

For all practical purposes, the Sohrabuddin case is one of triple murder. His wife Kauserbi is also believed to have been killed by Vanzara & Co. So was Tulsiram Prajapati, a small-time crook and friend of Sohrabuddin. He had helped the stf track their man to Hyderabad. Apparently, Prajapati was bumped off because he knew too much.

While Sohrabuddin's killing has been dismissed by many in the Gujarat police establishment as another instance of a gangster or terrorist being bumped off, and human rights issues being raised, what is worrying for the government is the political fallout if the case is investigated by an agency like the CBI over which it has no authority. It is believed that heads of senior politicians and police officers could roll if investigations are broadened to cover other alleged encounters in the state.

Already the mishandling of the case by state home minister Amit Shah has made Narendra Modi see red. Given a dressing down, Shah, one of the most powerful ministers in the cabinet, was missing from the Gujarat Day celebrations on May 1 at Junagadh. He also did not attend two cabinet meetings. He was present at the third one, but he left for home immediately after it. Perhaps he, like many others in the home department, is worried about which way the tide will turn on May 15.