Bombay HC upholds acquittal of 22 accused in Sohrabuddin Sheikh case
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The Bombay High Court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of 22 persons, including 21 police officers, in the alleged staged “encounter” killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati, as well as the alleged murder of Sheikh’s wife Kauser Bi, Bar and Bench reported.
Sheikh, a wanted criminal, was killed by the Gujarat Police in November 2005 in what investigators alleged was a staged encounter.
According to the allegations, Sheikh and Kauser Bi were travelling by bus from Hyderabad to Sangli when they were intercepted by police teams from Gujarat and Rajasthan, abducted and later shot dead near Gandhinagar.
Investigators had also alleged that a sub-inspector raped Kauser Bi before killing her. Prajapati, considered the sole witness to the murders, was kept in police custody after the incident but was later killed in another alleged fake encounter in December 2006 after police claimed he was trying to escape, Scroll.in reported.
In December 2018, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court acquitted all the accused, ruling that the prosecution had failed to establish a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.
Amit Shah, now the Union Home Minister and a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader, had earlier been acquitted of the case. During the trial, 92 of the 210 witnesses turned hostile.
In April 2019, Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s brothers, Rubabuddin Sheikh and Nayabuddin Sheikh, challenged the acquittals in the High Court, claiming that the trial process was flawed and that several witness statements were inaccurately recorded.
The CBI informed the court in October that it would not appeal against the acquittals.
On Thursday, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad dismissed the appeals filed by Sheikh’s brothers and upheld the acquittals.
