Sadiq Jamal encounter: Barot seeks bail, says ‘wrongly implicated’ by CBI

Suspended superintendent of police (DySP) Tarun Barot, chargesheeted in the Sadiq Jamal Mehtar encounter case, filed a bail application before a special CBI court Thursday. He blamed the CBI for wrongly implicating him in the case despite the fact that the central probe agency couldn't "recover or discover" anything incriminating against him.

Barot, who is lodged at Nadiad jail at present, filed the application through his lawyer Rohit Verma stating that CBI's accusation against him of bringing Jamal from Mumbai is baseless. He said the allegation was purely based on couple of statements by witnesses which even remotely doesn't suggest that "the charges leveled by CBI has any legs to stand".

"In fact all the so-called statements and the documents, sought to be deliberately used as incriminating material against Barot, reveal nothing except his visit to Mumbai between January 2 and January 4, 2003. There is not a single direct statement/document in the chargesheet which suggests that it was Barot himself who obtained the alleged custody of Jamal from Mumbai. CBI's allegations is based on just conjectures and surmises," states the application.

The bail application also questions CBI's chargesheet which is silent on the role of Mumbai-based journalist Ketan Tirodkar who was the first arrest in the case.

Barot has claimed that if charges against him are evaluate and compared with complaint and affidavit of Tirodkar, it is clear that CBI has "deliberately, maliciously and as a part of a sinister design implicated the applicant in the case".

The application also states that "task of CBI implicating Barot in the case was undertaken with a view to appease certain vested interests, who were hell-bound in causing loss and humiliation to Barot".

The matter has been scheduled for hearing on January 22.

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