CBI quizzes IPS officer in Tulsi Prajapati case

“CBI has recorded my statement today,” Johri,who is the managing director of Gujarat Police Housing Corporation,toldmedia.

Prajapati,a key witness in the Sheikh fake encounter case,was gunned down in a police encounter on December 28,2006 on the outskirts of Chhapri village near Ambaji town in North Gujarat.

Johri,who was an officer in state CID (crime),had initially investigated the fake encounter case of Sheikh,and directed the investigating officer V L Solanki to question Prajapati in that connection.

Johri in her interim report filed before the Supreme Court in 2007 had said that the third person travelling with Sheikh and Kausar Bi was Kalammudin and not Prajapti.

Sheikh,Kausar Bi and another person,believed to be Prajapati,were picked up by Gujarat Police from a bus in Andhra Pradesh in 2005. Sheikh and Kausar Bi were later killed. The apex court later transferred the investigations to CBI.

The central agency,while probing the Sheikh fake encounter case,had stumbled upon the evidence hinting that the third person with Sheikh and Kausar Bi was Prajapati.

CBI,which is now probing Prajapati encounter case,along with the Sheikh case,had questioned Johri earlier as well,but this is for the first time that she was quizzed in

Tulsi case. The supreme court had transferred the Prajapati encounter case to CBI on April 8,2011 with a direction to complete the probe within six months.

However,the apex court has so far granted four extensions to the CBI while setting June 30 as the deadline to file the charge sheet.

The state CID which earlier probed the Prajapati case had registered an FIR last year in Ambaji police station.

Seven policemen,including IPS officer Vipul Agarwal,were arrested in the case.

Three suspended IPS officers,D G Vanzara,Rajkumar Pandiyan and Dinesh M N,who are behind bars in connection with the Sohrabuddin encounter case,are accused in the Prajapati case as well.