Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to confirm whether the four police officials, who had accompanied Tulsiram Prajapati to Ahmedabad just days before his alleged encounter, had gone with Prajapati as his escort team on previous occasions as well.
The High Court’s question came after Rajasthan IPS officer Dinesh MN, one of the discharged accused in the encounter case of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi, and their aide Tulsiram Prajapati denied all charges against him. Dinesh claimed that he had had no role in choosing the escort team officials who had accompanied Prajapati to Ahmedabad for a court hearing.
As per the CBI, soon after this court hearing in December 2006, Prajapati was killed in a fake encounter by a team of Gujarat and Rajasthan police officers. However, the four officials who were part of his escort team, made up a false story about Prajapati having escaped from custody while they were returning to Udaipur in a train.
Inspector Narayan Singh, ASI Yudhveer Singh, and constables Dalpat Singh Rathod, and Kartar Singh from the Surajpol police station in Udaipur we’re part of the escort team that had accompanied Tulsiram Prajapati from Udaipur Central Prison to Ahmedabad for a court hearing in December 2006.
Dinesh’s counsel advocate Raja Thackeray told HC that since the jail authorities had asked for an escort team saying they did not have adequate number of officials, he merely directed the Surajpol police to send a team. “The team was not chosen by me. Therefore, even if one is to presume for a minute that there was a conspiracy to kill Prajapati, I couldn’t have played any role in it. I didn’t know which police officers were going with him,” Thakre said.
Justice Revati Mohite-Dere of Bombay HC however, remarked that some of the compilations of witness statements submitted by Rubabuddin, the brother of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, had pointed out that the same team of the four officials had travelled with Prajapati between Gujarat and Rajasthan for court hearings on some previous occasions as well.
The High Court is conducting a day to day hearing on pleas filed by Rubabuddin and the CBI challenging the discharge of five of the 15 accused persons who were discharged from the case by a special court between August 2016 and September 2017.