S Gurumurthy
The climax of the CBI story is how it smuggled Amit Shah into the Sohrabuddin case. Here is a brief, simple account of the complex episode. There are two chargesheets in the case; one by Gujarat CID (July 2007) in which AP Police figured as co-conspirators; the other by CBI [July 2010], which has scored out AP police as accused and inserted Amit Shah instead. The Congress-led AP and the BJP–led Rajasthan and Gujarat had jointly chased Sohrabuddin with the common motive of fighting terror. But with AP Police absolved and the encounter made an all-BJP affair, the motive of the encounter too had to be changed. Or is it vice versa? Anyway, if fight against crime and terror were the motive, Amit Shah and BJP would be seen as fighting terror; the Congress as supporting it. That would be deadly for the Congress in Gujarat. So, the CBI had to invent some ignoble motive for the encounter – to depict Amit Shah more as corrupt, and less as fighting terror. See how the CBI innovates, actually fabricates.
The CBI chargesheet therefore understandably accused Amit Shah and Gujarat Police thus: that they were running an extortion racket, even using Sohrabuddin for its extortion business; (Para 4&5) that Shah got Sohrabuddin to fire at the business premises of “Popular Builders” owned by two brothers, Raman Patel and Dasarath Patel, on 8.12.2004, to have a case registered against Sohrabuddin as accused, to justify killing him in encounter later and use his encounter to threaten others and extort; (Para 4,5&9) that, for the purpose, Shah directed Patels to name Sohrabuddin as accused in Popular Builders case, threatening them with “dire consequences”, if they did not. (Para 4&10)
Note the dates. Firing at Popular Builders took place on 8.12.2004; Sohrabuddin was killed on 26.11.2005; Shah threatened Patels on 16.12.2005. Now analyse. The CBI says that in December 2004 – note 2004 – Shah wanted Sohrabuddin as accused in Popular Builders case to justify killing him later. In the same breath, it says that Shah threatened Patels a year later, in December 2005 – note 2005 – to name Sohrabuddin as accused in Popular Builders case! Sohrabuddin became suspect in Popular Builders firing for the first time in December 2005 – that is, after his death, not in 2004.
This single fact shreds the CBI innovation that Shah got Sohrabuddin to fire to have a case registered against him in 2004, to justify killing him later. Did the CBI make the silly mistake of reading December 2005 as December 2004? Or, is it a crude fabrication? Or both? Read on.
The stupid story that Shah had planned the firing incident is proved bogus by the facts of Popular Builders case. The case was in cold storage for eight months, not knowing who the accused was! If Shah got the firing got done specifically to make Sohrabuddin accused, how could the case languish in search of an accused for eight months? See further. In June 2005, Rajasthan police informed Gujarat police, in normal exchange of clues, that Sohrabudin’s associates, questioned in another case, had confessed to their involvement in some firing at Ahmedabad in 2004. Yet, even on 5.8.2005, the case file read “undetected”, meaning no suspects found! When Tulsi Prajapathi and Sylvester, Sohrabuddin’s sharp shooters, were brought to Gujarat from Rajasthan in December 2005, they confessed that they had fired at Popular Builders at Sohrabuddin’s behest. The Gujarat police also found that before and after the firing – that is 7th and 9th December 2004 – Sohrabuddin had called Patels from his cell phone. Knowing that Sohrabuddin had ordered the firing to threaten Patels to pay up his dues, the Gujarat Police questioned Patels, on December 15/16 2005; but they persistently suppressed their links with Sohrabuddin, forcing the police to add them as accused. These irrefutable facts reduce the CBI story – that Shah got Sohrabuddin to fire in 2004 to make Sohrabuddin accused then itself to justify killing Sohrabuddin later – into bizarre and absurd fabrication.
Come to extortion as the motive for the encounter. It is based on Patels’ evidence. Here is a one-line profile of Patels. They are realtors – read land mafia – caught in land-related criminal cases. The interest of Patels waiting to hit at Gujarat government, and of the CBI eager to fix it, had become common. Patels testified that, to avoid arrest in some other case, they had paid Shah Rs 70 lakhs, in three instalments on specific dates, through Ajay Patel, Shah’s friend. But, as noticed in the high court anticipatory bail order of Ajay Patel, his passport showed that, on the date of the second payment claimed, he was in Singapore, which meant that Patels were indeed lying.
Patels also rendered a strange help the CBI by doing four bizarre sting operations on the unwary Ajay Patel and another friend of Shah; Patels gave the sting CDs running several hours to CBI. Yet, surprisingly, in the stings, Patels didn’t even hint about either Shah’s threat or the payment. In contrast, stings show Patels complimenting Ajay Patel for never indulging in any “money talk”! Anyway, if the threat and payment were true, Patels would have fixed Shah’s friends on both issues in the sting. But, they did not dare do it.
What’s the inference? Both charges are false. The CBI had intentionally made the accused in Popular Builders case, hardened criminals, as its witnesses in Sohrabuddin case, Patels being the star witnesses, to support CBI’s (bogus) story that the motive for Sohrabuddin’s murder was extortion. As part of this strategy, the CBI has planned to take over the Popular Builders case, reinvestigate it based on the (fake) theory that it was Shah who got the firing done, and absolve all accused in that case. Was it not this lollypop that made Patels and other accused to tell lies to support CBI’s bogus charges? Alas, with the CBI story that Shah himself had planned Popular Builders firing proving to be hoax, their testimonies against Shah are fit only for shredder. The fabricated case against Amit Shah is of course good enough to arrest him and disturb the best-governed and most prosperous state in the country.
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