Prosecution finishes witness examination
The CBI has examined 210 witnesses in the case and 92 of them have turned hostile.
Mumbai: The prosecution in the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh and 2006 Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case on Thursday informed the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court that it had completed examining witnesses and it is closing the case.
The CBI has examined 210 witnesses in the case and 92 of them have turned hostile.
As per court procedures, the judge will now record the statements of each and every accused under section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Under this section, the judge asks questions to the accused. The judge prepares these questions during the trial bas-ed on the testimony of witnesses and the material produced before the court.
Under this procedure, the accused gets an opportunity to personally explain any circumstances appearing in the evidence against him.
Special public prosecutor B.P. Raju on Thursday informed CBI judge S.J. Sharma that with the examination of chief investigating officer Sandeep Tamghare on Wednesday, the prosecution has completed examining witnesses in the case. The statement made by advocate Mr Raju before the court means that the CBI has examined all the witnesses concerned to prove its case against the 22 accused facing trial.
The Gujarat ATS and the Rajasthan police in a joint operation on November 26, 2005, shot dead Sheikh, who hailed from Madhya Pradesh and had several criminal cases registered against him.
The prosecution’s case is that the police team involved in the killing had first abducted Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi, and his aide Prajapati from a luxury bus in which they were travelling to Hyderabad. The police team first killed Sheikh in a fake encounter and then killed Kausar Bi to eliminate proof of the encounter. In December 2006, the police also killed Prajapati because he witnessed Sheikh’s killing in the alleged fake encounter.
The CBI had charged 38 persons in these killings. But the trial court had discharged 15 of them including Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah, Indian Police Serv-ice officers D.G. Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh MN.