Sohrabuddin, Tulsiram Prajapati ‘fake’ encounters: IPS officer urges HC to consider witness depositions in trial court

Justice A M Badar asked: “Can the accused say that tomorrow all witnesses are going to turn hostile so discharge me now? How can the revision court look into subsequent (trial court) development?” He added that at the time of charge or discharge, the material from chargesheet is considered.

Aggarwal was the superintendent of police of Banaskantha district when Prajapati was allegedly killed by a police team in 2006. Aggarwal was arrested by the CID (crime) in 2010 before the CBI took over the case. The CBI chargesheet claims that “immediately after the murder of Tulsiram Prajapati, Aggarwal, who was very close to Ambaji area, took a probationer DySP, Mayur Chavda, to the scene of crime near Sarhad Chapri in his own vehicle. The way Aggarwal was explaining the incident, it was clear that he had already been to the scene of crime”. According to the chargesheet, he entered into a criminal conspiracy by destroying the evidence. The High Court had on November 13, 2017, directed the trial court not to frame charges against Aggarwal, while stating the trial against the other accused proceed. The High Court has continued the order till date.

According to the CBI, Aggarwal had “intentionally destroyed” the leave record of co-accused Ashish Pandya, involved in the alleged fake encounter of Prajapati as part of the criminal conspiracy. According to the CBI chargesheet, on the instruction of former Gujarat DIG D G Vanzara, Aggarwal had summoned ATS officer Pandya, who was on leave, to carry out Prajapati’s alleged encounter. Gupte argued that Vanzara told two officers to visit Pandya’s house to summon him and there was no role of Aggarwal. Gupte told the court that there is no evidence to show Aggarwal’s involvement in destruction of evidence.

Had seen Rajasthan police officials at control room, says witness

In the alleged fake encounter of Tulsiram Prajapati, a police officer told the court, that he had seen officials of Rajasthan police at the control room in Palanpur on the intervening night of December 27-28, 2006. According to the CBI, the accused policemen from Rajasthan, part of the team that carried out the alleged encounter of Tulsiram on December 28, 2006, along with a Gujarat police officer, directly reached the spot as part of the conspiracy. The police official, who appeared as a prosecution witness, told the court during cross-examination that he had not seen any Rajasthan policemen.

But later he said he had seen them. Another witness, however, told the court that he had not seen anyone. The two witnesses on Friday deposed on the wireless messages sent by Udaipur Superintendent Dinesh M N to Banaskantha district Superintendent, Vipul Agarwal about a prisoner (Tulsiram) having escaped from custody by throwing chilli powder at the police guards on the train.