Sohrabuddin ‘fake’ encounter: No evidence against former Gujarat SP

Jethamalani and lawyer Gunjan Mangla told the court that Pandian was implicated in the case because he was a “top-class intelligence officer”. “I (Pandian) won’t deny, I went to Hyderabad (where Shaikh was allegedly killed) but they have twisted the purpose of my visit,” Jethmalani said, adding that Pandian went to Hyderabad with a sanction from the Gujarat Police to investigate the 2005 Begumpet bomb blast. Jethmalani also said discharge was “not the end of the matter” and Pandian could still be summoned by the trial court later. As Justice A M Badar asked the CBI how many more witnesses are yet to be examined by the trial court, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh said the figure was approximately 80.

Jethmalani said that two witnesses — State Reserve Police drivers attached to the Gujarat ATS — against Pandian are far from being reliable, as they themselves had said they never went to Hyderabad in their initial statement to the CID. He added that both the drivers have turned hostile in the trial court.

According to an affidavit filed by one of the drivers before the magistrate court at Gujarat in 2007, he had told the ATS in 2005 that he was an eyewitness to a genuine encounter. He had said that Sohrabuddin was apprehended by the police in Hyderabad and while he was trying to flee on a motorcycle, he was asked to stop. Sohrabuddin then had fired at the officer and was killed in retaliation. The driver had claimed that he was asked to sign the statement without reading it.

Jethmalani told court that when Gujarat CID took over the case in 2007, officer T K Patel called the same driver to record his statement. Then, the driver had said that this was a fake encounter. He had also said that he was threatened by the CID to stick to the statement signed before ATS, that he travelled to Hyderabad and thereafter was present during the abduction and killing of Sohrabuddin.

Jethmalani told the court that when CBI took over the investigation in 2010, it “copy-pasted” the CID’s statement in April 2007. The driver in his affidavit said that he never went to Hyderabad, was never a witness to have seen the Qualis car, the abduction of Sohrabuddin, Kausarbi and Prajapati and their killings.

He also read the second driver’s affidavit before the trial court in July 2015. The driver had said that the CID asked him to stick to his statement noted by ATS, or else he would either be dismissed from his job or arrested.