Mumbai: Just when the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai was concluding recording the 80th witness’s testimony in the ongoing trial on the alleged extra-judicial killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar bi and his associate Tulsiram Prajapati, an unexpected application was moved before the court on May 10, seeking to make Sohrabuddin’s brother Shahnawazuddin a witness in the case.
Shahnawazuddin, a 47-year-old resident of Jhirniya Shaikh village, Ujjain, in an application moved through his lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan, has claimed that the prosecution has not summoned him even though he could have been a “primary witness” in the case. He has also claimed to be under tremendous pressure and stated in his application that he fears for his life.
In a seven-page application submitted to the court, Shahnawazuddin claimed that Prajapati had “apologised” to him for having played an instrumental role in Sohrabuddin’s murder. He has said he met Prajapati at a district court in Ujjain sometime between October and November 2006, where the latter confessed to having worked at the behest of IPS officer Abhay Chudasma to help nab Sohrabuddin in some petty cases and keep him in a jail for a few months.
“Tulsiram Prajapati said that Abhay Chudasma had told him that this was necessary as there was a lot of political pressure to arrest Sohrabuddin,” Shahnawazuddin claimed in his application. Chudasma, who was earlier named as a prime accused in the killings, was discharged from the case in April 2015 for “lack of evidence”.
According to the prosecution, in November 2005, when Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser bi were travelling by bus from Hyderabad to Sangli (in Maharashtra), they were stopped by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police, abducted and shot dead near Gandhinagar. During the investigation, an Anti-Terrorism Squad officer had also claimed that Kauser bi was raped before being murdered. However, this allegation was not mentioned in the CBI chargesheet.
Twenty-two persons, including policemen from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, are on trial in the case. The accused face charges including murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence. The court has so far discharged or dropped charges against 15 accused, including BJP president Amit Shah (who was Gujarat’s home minister when the killings took place) and senior police officers D.G. Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandiyan and Dinesh M.N., among others.
Shahnawazuddin further added that Prajapati had feared for his life and knew he would be next in line to be murdered, since he was an eyewitness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and Kausar bi. “…and [Prajapati] was aware of the involvement of the high-ranking politicians such as the senior national leader of BJP (names not disclosed here in because of the threat to life to the applicant), Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria and senior police officers in the conspiracy,” the application claimed.
Two months after this alleged meeting took place, on December 28, 2006, Prajapati was killed by the Gujarat police in an ‘encounter’.
Shahnawazuddin’s application comes at the time when the court is already recording depositions of witnesses who are talking about how Prajapati feared for his life. The last few witnesses who have been examined have been asked about the application moved by Prajapati to the National Human Rights Commission stating that he will soon be killed in a staged encounter by the Gujarat police.
This is the first time Shahnawazuddin has made an appearance before the court. While his lawyer Ramakrishnan argued that the application should be heard urgently, Shahnawazuddin sat in the courtroom with two relatives from Ujjain. He told The Wire that Prajapati had handed him four blank papers with only his signatures on them. “He wanted me to carry out my investigation in the matter, write my findings in them and submit them to the Supreme Court. He hoped I could save his life. I could not do much to help Prajapati, and in a month or two he was killed.”
These documents, Shahnawazuddin claimed, were collected by CBI officers as “seized items” at the time of the investigation. While they have been mentioned in the list of documents, Shahnawazuddin has not been summoned as a witness. “The applicant (Shahnawazuddin) is forced to approach the court as the information provided by him seems to have not been placed on record,” the application stated. Similar papers have also been seized from his brother Rubabuddin, who has been made a witness in the case.
Without divulging any specific details, Shahnawazuddin said that he has been under tremendous pressure and facing constant surveillance by the “powerful politicians involved in the case”. “Mere chhote bhai (Rubabuddin) ne public main bola hai usko political dabao hai. Use jaan se maarne ki koshish bhi ki gayi hai. Woh log mere saath bhi kar aisa kar sakte hain (My younger brother has publicly claimed that he is under political pressure. There has been an attempt to kill him. They can do similar things with me too),” he told The Wire.
Shahnawazuddin’s application is crucial as a large number of witnesses have turned hostile during the trial, one after another. Of the 80 witnesses who have deposed in the case, 53 have already turned hostile. Although the CBI has not submitted a final list of witnesses it plans to examine in the case, Ramakrishnan told the court that it seemed unlikely that Shahnawazuddin would be summoned as a witness. Shahnawazuddin’s application will now be heard on June 4, after CBI prosecutor B.P. Raju tells the court whether or not the CBI plans to make Shahnawazuddin a witness in the case.