Shah grilled by CBI throughout Saturday

GANDHINAGAR - Gujarat’s former minister of state for home Amit Shah was grilled throughout Saturday by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials probing the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake shootout case. The questioning is expected to continue late in the night.

According to CBI sources, Shah’s interrogation would continue late in the night and might be resumed again Sunday. His two advocates, Mitesh Amin and Yatin Oza, have been permitted to be in visual distance though not in hearing distance during the questioning.

From the CBI, the two principal investigating officers, Deputy Inspector General G.P. Kandaswamy, who is leading the probe, and Superintendent of Police Amitabh Thakur, were present.

According to the sources, one of the key issues that Shah is being questioned on pertains to his phone calls to the police officers accused of the staged killings of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati around the period they were killed.

The CBI claimed that the phone call details provided to it by the state CID (Crime), which was investigating the case earlier, were doctored and the originals were in Shah’s possession.

The Gujarat High Court Friday granted the CBI two days’ custodial remand of the former minister for questioning.

The CBI officers took custody of Shah from the Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad Saturday morning and brought him to the CBI office here. Before being handed over to the agency, he was made to go through a medical check-up in the jail.

Meanwhile, the hearing on the bail application of former Banaskantha district police superintendent Vipul Agrawal, the principal accused in the Prajapati killing, scheduled to come up at the Palanpur sessions court Saturday, was put off till Aug 12.

The Gujarat anti-terrorism squad (ATS) has been accused of killing Sheikh in a staged shootout Nov 26, 2005, in Ahmedabad.