Bedi-led STF reconstructs Sameer Khan Pathan encounter

The Special Task Force (STF), headed by the Supreme Court-appointed H S Bedi Commission, reconstructed Sameer Khan Pathan encounter case again in Ahmedabad. The STF team carried out the reconstruction at Usmanpura for three hours in the presence of forensic officials. The STF will file a report to Justice H S Bedi only July 19.

The STF officials said that the reconstruction was done to plug the loopholes in the case. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch team had carried out the under encounter which was done by a team headed by suspended DSP Tarun Barot.

Barot and his team had claimed that Khan was a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist, who was on a mission to kill the then chief minister Narendra Modi. The team claimed to have apprehended him near Usmanpura garden and shot him.

The STF had earlier recorded statements of Sameer’s family that gave names of police officials for targeting Sameer. His family told the commission that Sameer was always on the radar of Crime Branch and they had held him in criminal cases before too to frame him.