A special CBI court in Mumbai has acquitted all 22 accused in the encounter of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kausar Bi and aide Tulsiram Prajapati citing lack of proof.
Reading its order, the special CBI court said it feels sorry for the families of Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati as three lives were lost. However, the “system and law demands that the court goes solely by evidence,” said Judge SJ Sharma. Witnesses and proofs are not satisfactory to prove conspiracy and murder in the 2005 encounter killing of petty thief Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife and aide Tulsiram Prajapati,” a special CBI judge said today.
According to the special CBI court, the CBI could not establish that policemen abducted Sohrabuddin from Hyderabad, brought them to Valsad and kept them in illegal confinement. There is no evidence, the court observed.
Know in detail about Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Kausar Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati
A hardened criminal in his mid-thirties, Sohrabuddin Sheikh belonged to Zarnia village in Madhya Pradesh. He operated in Udaipur, Ahmedabad and Ujjain.
According to the CBI, Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsi Prajapati ran an extortion racket in Gujarat in the early 2000s. Sheikh was alleged by the police to be extorting protection money from local marble factories in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
According to Gujarat police, he had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Sohrabuddin encounter case history
According to the CBI, in November 2005, alleged extortionists Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram along with Sohrabuddin’s wife Kausar Bi were travelling in a bus from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra when they were stopped by the teams from the Gujarat Police and Rajasthan Police and “abducted”.
Soon after the alleged abduction, Sohrabuddin was allegedly killed in a fake encounter near Ahmedabad in Gujarat. His wife, Kausar Bi who disappeared after the incident, was later allegedly killed as well. However, her remains were never found.
Tulsiram, who is considered to be the sole witness to the murders, was held in police custody after the encounter and was killed in another encounter in December 2006, when the police claimed he had tried to escape custody.
