SOHRABUDDIN’S ghost haunts the Gujarat Minister of State for Home, Mr Amit Shah and Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi. In November 2005, the state anti-terror squad killed Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi allegedly in a fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
The CBI, which is probing the Sohrabuddin murder at the directive of the Supreme Court, has been asked by the apex court to file a status report by July 31. In order to be update, the CBI summoned Mr Shah for questioning. Mr Shah, who became unavailable to the public, ducked the summons with a promise to appear on Friday. But on Friday too he did not keep his date with the CBI; instead he sent a team of lawyers to seek more time and get the set of questions the CBI was likely to put to him. This is sheer misuse of executive powers. Mr Shah has set a bad precedent: a minister, and least of all one in charge of home, should not be avoiding direct questioning by the CBI. The CBI is acting under the apex court directive, and there was nothing like shame involved if Mr Shah appeared before it for questioning.
What has made matters worse is the boycott of lunch with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh by senior BJP leaders including Mr L K Advani. The BJP accusation is that the UPA government was misusing the CBI to defame the party government in Gujarat. Mr Advani and other senior BJP leaders should know better than the party’s rank and file that summons do not amount to defaming of a government. Actually the non-compliance and preventing the CBI from completing a task entrusted to it by the apex court could give rise to suspicions about Mr Shah’s role in the minds of the people.
Mr Shah has already helped suspicions grow by not attending office for several weeks, skipping four cabinet meetings and keeping his whereabouts a closely guarded secret. His ‘disappearance’ has only richly fed the whispers about the CBI having strong evidence of his involvement in the heinous crime. If the CBI is to be believed it is in possession of the telephone records showing that after Sohrabuddin was picked up by the anti-terror squad, Mr Shah was in close touch with the policemen who allegedly killed Sohrabuddin. The minister stayed in close touch with the same policemen a year later as the main witness Tulsiram Prajapati in the Sohrabuddin case was also killed in a fake encounter. Significantly, the CBI had already arrested Abhay Chudasama, deputy commissioner of crime branch for trying to influence the witnesses. Mr Shah should stop putting obstacles in the CBI way of investigation, as the apex court is watching, and there cannot be any running away from a definite conclusion on the case.
