Tulsi Prajapati Case: Witness Says CBI Forced Him to Give Statement

Mumbai: A prosecution witness in the case related to the alleged fake encounter of Tulsi Prajapati on Thursday told a special court in Mumbai that the CBI forced him to give a statement by threatening to arrest him.

Trial in the case related to the alleged fake encounters of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsi Prajapati is going on at present. In 2013, the Supreme Court clubbed the Sheikh and Prajapati encounter cases.

Ranvijay Singh, an inspector with the Rajasthan police, deposed before special CBI judge S J Sharma on Thursday.

Singh told the court that the CBI detained him for three to four days, and had said that he would be allowed to attend his daughter's engagement only if he gave a statement as per the probe agency's wishes.

The inspector averred before the court that he was ready to undergo scientific tests to prove that he was telling the truth.

In his statement recorded before a magistrate in 2010, Singh had said that he was told by Sudhir Joshi, deputy superintendent of police, that he was to be a part of a team heading for Bilwara in Rajasthan to nab a close aide of gangster Sohrabuddin and a wanted accused in the Hammid Lala murder case.

Singh had further said that he witnessed Tulsi Prajapati being arrested, who at that moment had shouted that 'he had been cheated by the Gujarat police'.

However on thursday, inspector Singh said that he gave the statement only because the CBI threatened to arrest him.

A CBI lawyer said that despite this, the prosecution didn't declare him hostile, as he admitted to have given a statement before the magistrate.

Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were allegedly abducted by the Gujarat police's Anti-Terrorism Squad from Hyderabad on their way to Sangli in Maharashtra in November 2005. Sheikh was allegedly killed in a fake encounter near Gandhinagar.

His wife disappeared. She too was believed to have been done to death.

Prajapati, an aide of Sheikh's and eyewitness to the encounter, was allegedly killed by police at Chapri village in Gujarat's Banaskantha district in December 2006.

The fake encounter case was transferred to Mumbai in September 2012 on the request of the CBI which said it was necessary to ensure a fair trial.

In the Sohrabuddin case, as many as 48 prosecution witnesses have turned hostile so far.