Confirming the worst suspicions, the Gujarat government today told the Supreme Court that Kausar Bi, wife of fake encounter victim Sohrabuddin Sheikh, was also killed and her body burnt.

The admission by the Gujarat government came a day after The Sunday Express reported that interrogation of arrested officers and members of the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had revealed that Kausar Bi was killed on the night of November 28, 2005 in a house on the Koba-Adalaj Road. This was two days after her husband was killed by the ATS which passed him off as a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative, out to get Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders. Kausar Bi’s body was later transported to the Sabarkantha village of then ATS chief, D G Vanjhara (now in police custody), and burnt in a field.

The admission of Kausar Bi’s death was made today by Gujarat government counsel K T S Tulsi and Hemantika Wahi before a Bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and D K Jain. “She has been killed,” Tulsi said. The counsel also handed over in a sealed cover the action taken report on the Gujarat government investigation.

The court said it will pass an appropriate order tomorrow on a petition filed by Rubabuddin Sheikh, brother of Sohrabuddin, who had sought a CBI inquiry into the fake encounter. He had also urged the court to direct the Gujarat government to produce Kausar Bi who had gone missing.

Meanwhile, the CPM today attacked the Modi government in Gujarat over the fake encounter, saying its “complicity” in the case had been proved by its admission in the Supreme Court. Demanding a CBI inquiry into the matter, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury said action must be taken against “guilty officials” and the “complicity of the state government” must also be probed in the wake of the revelations.

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