Four years after they were killed, Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati are stalking their alleged one-time masters in Gujarat with a vengeance.

The duo from Madhya Pradesh may have begun their criminal career in the state, but Rajasthan was their big turf even while they spread wings in Gujarat. When the police shot him in an alleged fake encounter on November 26, 2005, near Ahmedabad, Sohrabuddin had four police cases against him in Gujarat, one in Rajasthan, two in Maharashtra and a dozen-odd cases in MP. Until he fell, Sohrabuddin perhaps had no clue that he was only a pawn in the hands of politicians and policemen who used him to run a bigger extortion network. The CBI now says Sohrabuddin’s masters stage-managed the shootout at a prominent Ahmedabad builder’s office in 2004.

If the CBI findings are anything to go by, it was all about money. Extortions were allegedly run and managed by senior police officers for their political bosses and the dead men were mere instruments.

According to the CBI chargesheet, Amit Shah, the former Gujarat minister of state for Home who is now in judicial custody, had entrusted the job of eliminating Sohrabuddin Sheikh to three senior IPS officers: D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandiyan and Abhay Chudasama.

Sohrabuddin’s accomplice Prajapati, who allegedly tipped off the police about Sohrabuddin, didn’t know he too was expendable—until the shots rang out a year later.

Sohrab Bhai

For many in Jhirnia, a village in Madhya Pradesh of over a thousand people, Sohrabuddin is ‘Sohrab Bhai’. The respect comes largely because of the power that the Sheikh family wields in the region.

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