Sohrabuddin case: One more witness turns hostile

Sohrabuddin Sheikh

One more prosecution witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati alleged fake encounter cases turned hostile before a special CBI court on Monday, taking the total number of such witnesses to 60.

The court has so far examined 86 prosecution witnesses. The witness, Bhawar Singh, the then station house officer of Hathipol police station in Rajasthan, was the investigating officer of the Hamid Lala murder case in which both Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati were accused.

Singh deposed today before special judge S J Sharma. In a statement given before CBI officer NS Raju in December 2010, Singh had said that he and his team had arrested Prajapati from the house of one Chandan Jha in Bhilwara on November 29, 2005.

He made a similar statement before the judicial magistrate under section 164 of the CrPC. However, in another statement before CBI officer Vishwas Meena in 2011, Singh had said that the arrest was made on November 26, 2005.

Today, he told the court he had to change the date as the CBI had threatened that he would be arrested and made an accused in the encounter case. Sohrabuddin, a suspected gangster with terror links, and his wife were killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat Police in November 2005.

Tulsiram Prajapati was killed in another alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police in December 2006. Of the 38 people charged by the CBI, 15, including senior IPS officers D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian, Dinesh MN, and BJP chief Amit Shah (then the Minister of State for Home in Gujarat) were discharged by the court.

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