A senior official from the Rajasthan Police was declared “hostile” on Monday, 4 June, after he alleged that two CBI officials had forced him into giving a false statement in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.
The case pans back to 23 November 2005, when Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi were escorted off a bus by the Anti-Terror Squad of the Gujarat Police for the former’s alleged “links” to terror outfits. A few days later Sohrabuddin was shot in the head, in what appears to be a “fake encounter”, fashioned by the police, and till date remains one of the most convoluted fake encounter cases, with names like the BJP Chief Amit Shah, deceased CBI Judge BH Loya and several others involved.
The official in question, Bhawar Singh, reports The Indian Express, is the 62nd witness who didn’t support the prosecution in the case, out of the 91 witnesses who have been examined so far.
Additionally, the officer is also the fourth witness from Rajasthan Police who has claimed to have been coerced by the CBI into giving a false statement in the case.
Singh was the Station House Officer of Hathipole police station in Udaipur in 2005 and was also the investigating officer of the Hamid Lala murder case, in which the accused was named as Tulsiram, who is also believed to have been killed in a fake encounter with the Gujarat Police.
1. ‘Forced to Give False Dates’
Singh, who is currently the deputy superintendent of the Rajasthan Police, said that while the CBI had claimed that Tulsiram was arrested by Rajasthan Police on 26 November 2005, it was actually on 29 November 2005.
The CBI had claimed that Tulsiram had been abducted on 23 November along with Sohrabuddin and his wife, but had been taken to Rajasthan and shown as arrested on 29 November 2005 to de-link the two cases.
Singh’s statement also claimed that two CBI officials had threatened him into lying about the date of the duo’s arrests, while giving a statement before the magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
I was threatened that I will be shown as an accused. With fear of being arrested, I lied about the date of Tulsiram’s arrest to be 26th November.Bhawar Singh to The Indian Express
2. ‘CBI Never Recorded My Statement’
Singh told the court that although he had been summoned by the CBI officials on multiple occasions, his statement was never recorded, the report adds.
The CBI, however, claimed that Singh had given three different statements.
However, the CBI’s statements itself are contradictory with one of its recorded statements from 2010 stating that the date of Tulsiram’s arrest was 26 November, while another one recorded the following year, slated it as 29 November, reports The Indian Express.
3. ‘Parts of My Statement Not True’
Singh also denied several parts of his earlier recorded statement which included having told the CBI that the then Superintendent of Police, Udaipur, Dinesh MN, had visited Ahmedabad in November 2005, in order to arrest Sohrabuddin.
“Despite being an IO of this case (Hamid Lala murder case), I was not even informed and was also not taken for arresting Sohrabuddin,” Singh had said earlier, reports The Indian Express. However, he has now denied making this statement.
(With inputs from The Indian Express)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)