A WITNESS in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati alleged fake encounter cases told a special court on Tuesday that Gujarat policemen had taken money from him after implicating him in a false case in 2005. The court, however, did not record the submission, stating that it did not relate to the cases of the alleged encounters and that he could submit about it before the concerned court hearing the case. According to the CBI chargesheet, the witness, in his statement, had earlier alleged that Sohrabuddin was an informant of Gujarat policeman Abhay Chudasama (named in the encounter cases initially but discharged in 2015) and that the latter had sought money from him to clear his name in a case. While Special Public Prosecutor B P Raju asked the witness whether his statement was recorded before a magistrate, he did not ask for the statement to be shown to the witness for identification of the document.The witness, the owner of a petrol pump in Ahmedabad, was earlier not included in the list of witnesses to be examined by the CBI. After the witness himself wrote to the CBI that he was willing to depose, the CBI included him as a prosecution witness. On Tuesday, the witness told the court that in 2001, he was called to the office of the ATS in Ahmedabad along with others, including Sohrabuddin. He said that he was threatened that he would be implicated in a false case, involving conspiracy to kill a man named Rafiq Chejara, but was subsequently not charged. The witness added that after the alleged encounter of Sohrabuddin in 2005, he was taken away by two Gujarat policemen, including one named Chaubey (one Balkrishna Chaubey is currently facing trial). He said he was detained for “six to seven days”. “After Sohrabuddin’s encounter, the ATS officers arrested me. the accusation against me was that I was one of the authors of the firing on Popular builders’ office along with Tulsiram. on the instructions of Sohrabuddin in 2004,” he added. “Vanzara ne bola tha, mera naam aana chahiye (discharged accused Gujarat policeman D G Vanzara had said that the witness should be named in the case),” the witness added. The witness said that the police had taken money from him to settle the case. The court, however, told him that this did not concern the current accused. “You should talk about it before the court which is hearing the case,” special Judge S J Sharma said.During cross-examination, when defence lawyer Wahab Khan asked the witness if he was close to Sohrabuddin and Chudasama, the question was disallowed by the court.Further, the witness told the court before Tulsiram’s encounter, he had met him during a court hearing in Gujarat. “Tulsiram had said that the police had threatened to kill him in an encounter. We told him to tell the judge about his apprehensions. His advocate Salim was inside the court and we asked Tulsiram to speak to him. He had given an application to the court,” the witness claimed. During cross-examination, however, he told the court that he had not spoken to Tulsiram in court.
