‘Tulsiram saw cops catch Sohrabuddin’

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has completed its probe into the 2006 Tulsiram Prajapati encounter killing and is set to file its chargesheet in the Gujarat High Court in a few days, sources said, adding the probe agency has established that Tulsiram was the third person travelling with gangster Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi when the couple were picked up by police and killed a few days later in 2005.

Tulsiram, a Sohrabuddin's aide, was killed in an encounter at Ambaji in Banaskantha in December 2006.

"The investigations in the case are over. We are filing the chargesheet before June 30. We have concluded that Tulsiram was the third person travelling with Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi in the Sangli-bound bus coming from Hyderabad. There is enough evidence to prove Tulsiram was travelling with the couple when they were picked up by police," a CBI officer said.

"Tulsiram was witness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi. He knew what unfolded after the couple was taken away to Ahmedabad from Sangli. He was under threat," the officer added.

CBI officials also indicated that the names of police officers found to be involved in Sohrabuddin's encounter killing are likely to figure in the Tulsiram case chargesheet too.

Former minister of state (home) Amit Shah, who was earlier jailed in the the Sohrabuddin case, is also under the scanner, the CBI officer said, adding that the probe agency had obtained his call records that show he was in constant touch with D G Vanzara and Rajkumar Pandian between December 25 and December 28, 2006, the day Tulsiram was killed. Both Vanzara and Pandian are in jail in the Sohrabuddin case.

Shah, who was also questioned by the CBI in New Delhi in January this year in connection with the Tulsiram case, had denied any involvement, CBI sources said. The CBI had taken over the Tulsiram case probe in May last year on High Court's orders.

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