Charges against Amit Shah dropped in Sohrabuddin encounter case

In a major relief to Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Tuesday discharged him in the case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter killing in 2005.

"I am of the opinion that the inference drawn by the CBI is not accepted in totality and he (Shah) cannot be charged as an accused," Special CBI Judge M B Gosavi said in a brief order pronounced in the court.

With the special court accepting Shah's discharge application, he will not have to face trial in the case any more.

Details of the judgment will be available later.

The CBI had charged Shah, the then minister of state for home in Gujarat, as an accused in the killing of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati, who was said to have been an eyewitness to the encounter.

According to the CBI, Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi were kidnapped by Gujarat's Anti-Terrorism Squad in November 2005 and killed in a fake encounter. The Gujarat police had claimed Sohrabuddin had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba and planned to assassinate important political leaders.

A year later in December 2006, Tulsiram Prajapati, a witness to the encounter, was killed by the Gujarat police, who claimed he had been trying to escape from custody.

The case was transferred from Gujarat to Mumbai earlier this year.

In September 2013, the CBI had chargesheeted Shah and 18 others, including several police officers. Shah was charged with criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and offences under the Arms Act.

The CBI alleges that Shah was involved in both killings as the police reported to him.

Shah, who was in the Gujarat cabinet led by the then chief minister Narendra Modi, stepped down in 2010 after he was arrested in the case. He got bail three months later.

With inputs from PTI

Image: BJP chief Amit Shah. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters