Gujarat police finally hand over Prajapati case to CBI
By IANSMonday, May 31, 2010
GANDHINAGAR - After dragging its feet for over a month, Gujarat Police’s criminal investigation department (CID) Monday handed over the probe into Tulsiram Prajapati killing to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The papers of the case were handed over to the central investigating agency, police sources here said.
Prajapati was a close associate of Sohrabuddin Sheikh who was allegedly killed in a fake gunfight by the Gujarat police in Ahmedabad. The state CID was initially vested with the investigation of both the Sohrabuddin and the Prajapati cases. However, under orders of the Supreme Court the Sohrabuddin case was handed over to the CBI in January this year.
The apex court had also mandated the CBI to investigate the wider conspiracy in the case, which led the agency to the killing of Prajapati, who was the sole eye-witness to Sheikh’s abduction by the Gujarat police and his subsequent elimination.
Though the CBI kept asking for the papers of the Prajapati case, the CID did not hand these over to the agency. Instead, the CID speeded up its own probe, arresting former district superintendent of police Vipul Agrawal, police inspector Ashish Pandya, and four other policemen in connection with Prajapati’s killing.
