S Gurumurthy
The Supreme Court entrusted the Sohrabuddin case to the CBI for two reasons: one, to identify the conspirators from Andhra Pradesh police; two, to ensure fair probe in Gujarat. The Attorney General had told the court that the CBI alone could probe AP police. Result, the court trusted the CBI to identify the offenders from AP police. See how the CBI honoured the court’s trust.
The CBI entered the case in February 2010, filed chargesheet in July. The chargesheet (Para 18-20) explicitly charged that AP police was also party to the plot to kill Sohrabuddin; that Gujarat and AP police jointly intercepted the bus carrying Sohrabuddin couple from Hyderabad to Sangli, disembarked them, and took them to Ahmedabad where they were murdered; that two Tata Sumo vehicles with AP police officials had joined the kidnap caravan to Gujarat. Having found AP police involvement, the CBI, in its first report, told the court on 30.7.2010, “efforts to identify the (AP) police officers are in progress”. But, in just 120 days, (in its final report dt 30.11.2010) the CBI somersaulted, mysteriously. And told the court that the AP police was not – yes, NOT – involved in the offence; thus quickly closed the case against them!
The CBI’s U-turn is shocking, even bizarre. If AP police were innocent as the CBI now says, did, as its own chargesheet found, the two drivers of Tata Sumos (of AP police) converge their vehicles in front of the bus in which Sohrabuddin couple were and stop it at midnight, for fun; Or, for them to watch the free reality night show of kidnapping by Gujarat police; and, did they join the all-night caravan ride to Ahmedabad for sightseeing; again, did they play host to Gujarat police for free ticket to watch kidnap drama? Absurd yes, but unanswerable, questions. The CBI’s dishonest U-turn is perfidious too. Its final report (Para 21-24) makes it clear that far from identifying the co-conspirators, the CBI has worked to ensure that none of them was exposed.First, the CBI tells a blatant lie to the court that despite strenuous efforts, it could not trace the “crucial witnesses”, Kalimuddin and his sister Salima Begum. It is a shocking falsehood. For, nine months before lying to the court thus, a senior CBI official SS Giri (DySP/CBI/ACB/BLR) had met – yes, MET – Salima, on 2.3.2010, at Hyderabad; also recorded her statement. Salima had then admitted to Giri that she and Kalimuddin were Naxalites-turned AP police informers, “protected now by AP police”; they knew Sohrabuddin very well; they did invite him to Hyderabad. Salima’s testimony attached to the CBI’s chargesheet (pages 210-11), bears Giri’s signature. More, the CBI tells the court in its final report: Salima “played a key role as facilitator in luring Sohrabuddin” couple to Hyderabad; Kalimuddin, a “dreaded criminal”, “absconder”, had “gained respectability due to his new role as the informer of AP police”. Leave the brother-sister duo, for now.
The CBI probe into ‘suspect’ officials of AP police – who were the hosts of Gujarat police and simultaneously were also protectors of Kalimuddin and Salima who had hosted Sohrabuddin – is also perfidious. Saying, ritually, that its ‘thorough’ examination of the AP police personnel didn’t yield “anything useful”, the CBI closes all efforts to identify the co-conspirators of Gujarat from AP!
It also suppresses from the court the crucial fact that the Vehicle Entry Register of the IPS Officers’ Mess for the period August 2005 to May 2006, which could reveal the identity of the drivers of Tata Sumos, and the abettors from AP police, has just vanished – an obvious cover-up. Yet, no AP police official was arrested, interrogated in custody – a clear contrast to over a dozen Gujarat, Rajasthan police arrested and in jail now for four years!
Now back to the brother-sister duo. The CBI indeed met Salima; but it lied to the Court it didn’t. It could have easily reached Kalimuddin; yet it lied to the court it couldn’t. Salima had also offered to talk about Sohrabuddin’s encounter “after talking to her brother”, say more on the next day. Yet, Giri didn’t meet her the next day; didn’t get her speak more; didn’t try reaching Kalimuddin. Further. It suppressed all this from the court. Why? Analyse.
Salima and Kalimuddin, the AP police informers and protégés, had facilitated “luring” Sohrabuddin to Hyderabad – that is, trapping him. Kalimuddin and Salima duo would have trapped Sohrabuddin at whose instance? Only AP police whose protégés they were, not at Gujarat police behest. See the picture that emerges. First, the AP police informers and protégés lured Sohrabuddin to Hyderabad and kept him hosted; next, within days, the Gujarat police arrived in Hyderabad and the AP Police played their host; finally, Gujarat and AP police jointly intercepted the bus, kidnapped Sohrabuddin and travelled in the caravan to Ahmedabad, where the couple were killed. Just coincidences? Laughable.
It’s undeniably the joint mission of both AP and Gujarat, with Kalimuddin and Salima as the trap. Now add the vanished vehicle register, plus that it all happened in Hyderabad. Any seer needed to say that the CBI clean chit to AP police is perfidious?
Kalimuddin and Salima are indeed the ‘smoking guns’, yet sitting ducks. Still Giri would not meet Salima the next day? Reason? What if she says she had “lured” Sohrabuddin couple at the behest of her benefactors, the AP police? What if the AP police abetment comes to light? That will bracket the Congress in AP with the BJP in Gujarat in Sohrabuddin encounter! The political cost is huge.
The Congress president Sonia Gandhi had staked her and her party’s reputation and charged Narendra Modi with killing Sohrabuddin for communal reasons. If the late YSR, known as the closest to Sonia Gandhi then, were found to have partnered Modi in the Sohrabuddin venture, would he not share with Modi her trophy of “merchant of death” posthumously? Is that not why the CBI has dishonestly suppressed Salima’s testimony, deceitfully lied it couldn’t reach either her or Kalimuddin, fraudulently absolved AP police and perfidiously targeted Gujarat alone? The CBI betrayed the court, yes, but bailed out the Congress.
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