Author: S Gurumurthy
Publication: The New Indian Express
Date: August 13, 2011
URL: http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/columnists/fixing-shah-by-fabrication/303694.html
The climax of the CBI story is how it smuggled
Amit Shah into the Sohrabuddin case. Here is a brief, simple account of the
complex episode. There are two chargesheets in the case; one by Gujarat CID
(July 2007) in which AP Police figured as co-conspirators; the other by CBI
[July 2010], which has scored out AP police as accused and inserted Amit Shah
instead. The Congress-led AP and the BJP-led Rajasthan and Gujarat had jointly
chased Sohrabuddin with the common motive of fighting terror. But with AP
Police absolved and the encounter made an all-BJP affair, the motive of the
encounter too had to be changed. Or is it vice versa? Anyway, if fight against
crime and terror were the motive, Amit Shah and BJP would be seen as fighting
terror; the Congress as supporting it. That would be deadly for the Congress
in Gujarat. So, the CBI had to invent some ignoble motive for the encounter
- to depict Amit Shah more as corrupt, and less as fighting terror. See how
the CBI innovates, actually fabricates.
The CBI chargesheet therefore understandably
accused Amit Shah and Gujarat Police thus: that they were running an extortion
racket, even using Sohrabuddin for its extortion business; (Para 4&5)
that Shah got Sohrabuddin to fire at the business premises of "Popular
Builders" owned by two brothers, Raman Patel and Dasarath Patel, on 8.12.2004,
to have a case registered against Sohrabuddin as accused, to justify killing
him in encounter later and use his encounter to threaten others and extort;
(Para 4,5&9) that, for the purpose, Shah directed Patels to name Sohrabuddin
as accused in Popular Builders case, threatening them with "dire consequences",
if they did not. (Para 4&10)
Note the dates. Firing at Popular Builders
took place on 8.12.2004; Sohrabuddin was killed on 26.11.2005; Shah threatened
Patels on 16.12.2005. Now analyse. The CBI says that in December 2004 - note
2004 - Shah wanted Sohrabuddin as accused in Popular Builders case to justify
killing him later. In the same breath, it says that Shah threatened Patels
a year later, in December 2005 - note 2005 - to name Sohrabuddin as accused
in Popular Builders case! Sohrabuddin became suspect in Popular Builders firing
for the first time in December 2005 - that is, after his death, not in 2004.
This single fact shreds the CBI innovation
that Shah got Sohrabuddin to fire to have a case registered against him in
2004, to justify killing him later. Did the CBI make the silly mistake of
reading December 2005 as December 2004? Or, is it a crude fabrication? Or
both? Read on.
The stupid story that Shah had planned the
firing incident is proved bogus by the facts of Popular Builders case. The
case was in cold storage for eight months, not knowing who the accused was!
If Shah got the firing got done specifically to make Sohrabuddin accused,
how could the case languish in search of an accused for eight months? See
further. In June 2005, Rajasthan police informed Gujarat police, in normal
exchange of clues, that Sohrabudin's associates, questioned in another case,
had confessed to their involvement in some firing at Ahmedabad in 2004. Yet,
even on 5.8.2005, the case file read "undetected", meaning no suspects
found! When Tulsi Prajapathi and Sylvester, Sohrabuddin's sharp shooters,
were brought to Gujarat from Rajasthan in December 2005, they confessed that
they had fired at Popular Builders at Sohrabuddin's behest. The Gujarat police
also found that before and after the firing - that is 7th and 9th December
2004 - Sohrabuddin had called Patels from his cell phone. Knowing that Sohrabuddin
had ordered the firing to threaten Patels to pay up his dues, the Gujarat
Police questioned Patels, on December 15/16 2005; but they persistently suppressed
their links with Sohrabuddin, forcing the police to add them as accused. These
irrefutable facts reduce the CBI story - that Shah got Sohrabuddin to fire
in 2004 to make Sohrabuddin accused then itself to justify killing Sohrabuddin
later - into bizarre and absurd fabrication.
Come to extortion as the motive for the encounter.
It is based on Patels' evidence. Here is a one-line profile of Patels. They
are realtors - read land mafia - caught in land-related criminal cases. The
interest of Patels waiting to hit at Gujarat government, and of the CBI eager
to fix it, had become common. Patels testified that, to avoid arrest in some
other case, they had paid Shah Rs 70 lakhs, in three instalments on specific
dates, through Ajay Patel, Shah's friend. But, as noticed in the high court
anticipatory bail order of Ajay Patel, his passport showed that, on the date
of the second payment claimed, he was in Singapore, which meant that Patels
were indeed lying.
Patels also rendered a strange help the CBI
by doing four bizarre sting operations on the unwary Ajay Patel and another
friend of Shah; Patels gave the sting CDs running several hours to CBI. Yet,
surprisingly, in the stings, Patels didn't even hint about either Shah's threat
or the payment. In contrast, stings show Patels complimenting Ajay Patel for
never indulging in any "money talk"! Anyway, if the threat and payment
were true, Patels would have fixed Shah's friends on both issues in the sting.
But, they did not dare do it.
What's the inference? Both charges are false.
The CBI had intentionally made the accused in Popular Builders case, hardened
criminals, as its witnesses in Sohrabuddin case, Patels being the star witnesses,
to support CBI's (bogus) story that the motive for Sohrabuddin's murder was
extortion. As part of this strategy, the CBI has planned to take over the
Popular Builders case, reinvestigate it based on the (fake) theory that it
was Shah who got the firing done, and absolve all accused in that case. Was
it not this lollypop that made Patels and other accused to tell lies to support
CBI's bogus charges? Alas, with the CBI story that Shah himself had planned
Popular Builders firing proving to be hoax, their testimonies against Shah
are fit only for shredder. The fabricated case against Amit Shah is of course
good enough to arrest him and disturb the best-governed and most prosperous
state in the country.
