Mumbai: Azam Khan, a witness in the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh and 2006 Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case, on Monday sent a handwritten application in Hindi to the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court seeking permission to appear before the court on any random date to record his statement because he feared for his life. He has said that he knew everything about the case but was scared that either he would be killed or would be falsely implicated in cases. Khan claimed that he was a friend of Sheikh and knew all the secrets and why and on whose instance Sheikh and Prajapati were killed.
Khan’s wife Rizwana appeared before the special court as a witness on Monday and told the court that her husband was a friend of Sheikh. She also gave a handwritten application to the court on behalf of her husband.
The letter, which was signed by Khan, read, “I, Azam Khan, am a witness in Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case. I know all the secrets why and on whose instance Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram were killed. I want to reveal all the details before the court, but I am scared that these people could kill me too in an encounter or they could falsely implicate me in some big case and hence I am not attending the court on the date given by the court.”
In the one-page letter, Khan requested the court to allow him to appear before it at any random date as per his convenience. “I request the court to give me the liberty to appear before the court on any random date and inform the court about the truth,” read the letter. The court has asked the prosecution to file its reply on this application.
According to reports, Khan, Sheikh and Prajapati were accused of the murder of Udaipur gangster Hamid Lala. An Udaipur-based gangster, Khan served time in jail with Prajapati, Sheikh’s aide, in Udaipur, where the latter told him of his apprehensions of being killed after Sheikh’s encounter. He was brought to Ahmedabad with Prajapati on his last court date, when Prajapati was killed on the way back, on December 28, 2006.
In his statement before the CBI, Khan implicated IPS officer Abhay Chudasama in the encounter and termed him Sheikh’s partner in an extortion racket.
Earlier this year, he retracted his statement by filing an affidavit in the CBI court, maintaining that he was coerced to make a false statement about Chudasama at the behest of a Congress party leader. Later, Chudasama was discharged by the CBI court in Mumbai for want of evidence and sanction to prosecute him.
