In the Sohrabuddin Shaikh alleged fake encounter case, one of the chief investigating officers, who probed the case in 2007, told the court that he had made an application to make 13 persons accused in the case, three of whom were cited as witnesses, subsequently. Gambhir Padheriya told the court that on May 7, 2007, he had made an application to the then Inspector General of Police, Geeta Johri, seeking to make 13 persons as accused for the alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Shaikh on November 26, 2005. These included Nathubha Jadeja, Gurudayal Singh and Bhailal Rathod, cited as witnesses by the CBI. Jadeja, Singh and Rathod when deposing as prosecution witnesses did not support the prosecution case. Jadeja, while deposing in December last year, told the court that he did not know the accused policemen. He had earlier stated that he had accompanied the accused policemen during the abduction of Sheikh, his wife Kausarbi and associate Tulsiram Prajapati from a luxury bus in 2005 and for the subsequent encounter of Sohrabuddin and disposal of Kausarbi’s body in Illol village. Padheriya said that he had sought permission to make them accused but their statements were not recorded by him. Further, Padheriya was also asked about the registration of FIR by the accused policeman Abdul Rehman in Gujarat after the encounter. Padheriya said during cross-examination that Rehman’s handwriting sample was not taken and neither had he or other investigators probed into whether Rehman could write in Gujarati, the language in which the FIR is written. “I have not tried to find out if Rehman knows writing and reading in Gujarati and if the report is lodged by him,”Padheriya told the court.
