How CBI betrayed Court to save Congress
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 a 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 Court’s trust.
The CBI entered the case in February 2010, filed a chargesheet in July.
The charge sheet (Para 18-20) explicitly accused 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 involved, 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 the AP Police were innocent as CBI now says, did, as its own charge heet 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 the Gujarat Police; and, did they join the all night caravan ride to Ahmedabad for sightseeing; again, did they play host to the Gujarat Police for a free ticket to watch the 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, 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 Naxalitesturned 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 the AP Police”. Leave the brother-sister duo, for now.
The CBI probe into ‘suspect’ officials of the AP Police—who were the hosts of the 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”, 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 policemen arrested and in jail now for four years! Now back to the brother-sister duo.
The CBI has 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. Why? Analyse.
Salima and Kalimuddin, the AP police informers and protégés, had facilitated “luring” Sohrabuddin to Hyderabad—that is, trapping him. The Kalimuddin and Salima duo would have trapped Sohrabuddin at whose instance? Only the AP Police whose protégés they were, not at behest of the Gujarat police. 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.
The Amit Shah Insertion Gambit
The climax of the CBI story is how it smuggled Amit Shah into Sohrabuddin case. Here is a brief, simple account of the complex episode.
There are two chargesheets in the case; one by the Gujarat CID [July 2007] in which the AP Police figured as co-conspirators; the other by the 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 the AP Police absolved and the encounter made an all-BJP affair, the motive of the encounter too had to be changed. Or it is 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 Prajapati and Sylvester, Sohrabuddin’s sharpshooters, 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 cellphone. Knowing that Sohrabuddin had ordered the firing to threaten the Patels to pay up their dues, the Gujarat Police questioned the 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 a bizarre 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 lakh, 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.
More. Patels also rendered a strange help the CBI by doing four bizzarre 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 the Patels and other accused tell lies to support CBI’s bogus charges? Alas, with the CBI story that Shah planned Popular Builders firing proving to be a hoax, their testimonies against Shah are fit for the 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.
Dead Men Tell Suitable Tales
A key question that still remains unresolved is: who was the third person known to the Sohrabuddin couple in the bus to Sangli, when they were intercepted and what was his role. It was Kalimuddin, said the Gujarat CID. No, it was Tulsi Prajapati, says the CBI now. The Supreme Court had asked the CBI to find out who it was. Kalimuddin is known. Who was Prajapati? Sohrabuddin’s main hitman.
Thus goes the CBI theory: the Gujarat Police deceived Prajapathi, through him got at Sohrabuddin; Prajapati was the third person; after Sohrabuddin’s abduction, Prajapathi was taken by Rajasthan Police and shown as arrested a week later. A year later, fearing that Prajapathi might expose them, Rajasthan-Gujarat Police killed him on 28.12.2006 in a fake encounter. But, the CBI theory falters at the start; it does not answer this simple, yet vital, question: why would the Gujarat police, who brutally killed another eyewitness, the innocent Kausar Bi, risk Prajapathi, a hardened criminal, living till December 2006? Move on.
Sohrabuddin’s travel to Hyderabad would be the right starting point to unravel the mysterious third person. Yet, see how deliberately shallow is the CBI probe into the vital event.
The CBI says in that in mid November 2005, Sohrabuddin couple “left Indore bus stand in a Maruti van to Hyderabad”. Yet, the CBI would not ask such simple questions which cub-reporters in newspapers would not miss, namely, whether Sohrabuddin self-drove the van from Indore; if he had a driver, who was he; what happened to him; what happened to the vehicle; did it go back to Indore or was it left behind in Hyderabad itself; why did Sohrabuddin not go to Sangli in the same vehicle but chose a bus instead; whether Prajapathi came along with Sohrabuddin from Indore; if not when, where did he join. Not unusual that the premier investigator does not ask such simple, vital questions? What is unveiled here will explain why the CBI was not keen to probe deep. Read on.
The CBI itself admits that Salima had lured the couple to Hyderabad, implying that some undisclosed masters had directed her. Yet the CBI would not ask her who was it. Salima and Kalimuddin hosted the couple; bought the bus tickets of the couple to Sangli through their associate, Hari. Did Kalimuddin also travel with the couple? Analyse.
Who, other than AP police informers, could have kept the AP Police informed about the couple coming, staying with Kalimuddin and going by bus to Sangli.
Even if Kalimuddin were not the third person, he would know who he was. The CBI too says it was “critical to trace Kalimuddin to find out who else was linked with the abduction of Sohrabuddin” (Para 21 of the final report). The CBI tells the Court that it had “tied up” with AP Police sister intelligence “to trace out the absconding” Kalimuddin, but “the efforts proved futile”; “efforts were also made to find out information” about his “possible hide out” by contacting various sources and informants (Para 21), also “the present whereabouts” of “Kalmudddin and Salima” (Para 22). All lies, lies and lies. The brother-sister duo is very much under the protection of CBI’s sister intelligence in AP! The CBI’s chargesheet itself shockingly calls the CBI’s bluff. Shock I: The CBI had met Salima on 2.3.2010, where? Believe it, at her residence! Shock II: Where was her residence? It was—believe it again—in Railway Police Quarters! Shock III: Salima’s statement to CBI (SS Giri) shows her address as “Qtr [meaning Quarter] no: 11-6-49/11 Railway Police Quarters, Nampally, Hyderabad/Door No.3-7-157 Mansoorabad, LB Nagar, Hyderabad” (Page 210/Vol I Witness statements). The CBI tells the Court the Salima is absconding; and she is sitting pretty in Railway Police Quarters! Under central police care! Was central intelligence too involved then in operation Sohrabuddin? Is that why the CBI is unwilling to move on AP police? Only some FBI—not CBI—can answer.
What was CBI’s compulsion to tell such blatant and perfidious lies, lies and lies; and conceal and suppress that it had met Salima or it could access Kalimuddin? Here is the clue. The CBI was compelled to smuggle in Prajapati as the third person because it was under greater compulsion conceal Kalimuddin and deny he was the third person. Why was the CBI compelled to conceal him and deny he was the third person? See the sequence. Kalimuddin and Salima, informers and protégés of AP police were Sohrabuddin’s friends; they lured him to Hyderabad, obviously at AP police behest; AP police hosted Gujarat police; it worked with them to intercept and abduct Sohrabuddin; also travelled in the kidnap caravan all night to Ahmedabad.
Is the square not complete? If the CBI admitted Kalimuddin as the third person, he would be an accused; and along with him inevitably, the AP police. That means politically, AP government, which is disaster for the Congress. So, AP police has to be kept out at all costs.
As AP police has to be out, Kalimuddin has to abscond; for, if he is in, AP police cannot be out. But here is a catch. Then the third person’s seat in the bus will remain empty; it cannot. An alternate has to be found, if Kalimuddin is to be kept out. His alternate has to be a connected person. But, he cannot be a living person; because a living person will speak. So, he has to be a dead person; so that others can speak in his name, as the CBI wants. Fortunately, such a person was available to the CBI off the shelf. So, the CBI smuggled in the dead Prajapati, smuggled out the living Kalimuddin. But, the CBI has goofed up. Only Kalimuddin as the third person explains why the AP police had to join the kidnap caravan to Ahmedabad.
It had to safely bring back its informer and protégé – Kalimuddin. Yet, to fix the BJP, and bail out Congress, the CBI has used a dead lie, Prajapati, to kill the living truth, Kalimuddin.
This is not the epilogue. Only an honest and independent judiciary can write an epilogue to this perfidy.
(Concluded)
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