Sadiq Jamal encounter: CBI arrests DySP accused in Ishrat case

The CBI on Tuesday arrested deputy superintendent of police of Mehsana district, Tarun Barot, in connection with the Sadiq Jamal encounter case, sources said.

Barot, posted in Mehsana district for a year now, had been on the CBI radar for the last six months and was questioned twice in the case.

The deputy SP would be produced in the special CBI court on Wednesday.

The CBI, which was handed over the probe in the case in June last year, had arrested Mumbai-based journalist Ketan Tirodkar in July this year. Tirodkar, who is now in judicial custody, had reportedly told CBI that it was Barot who had taken the custody of Sadiq from Daya Nayak, the encounter specialist from Mumbai police.

Barot was a sub-inspector in Ahmedabad when Sadiq Jamal Mehtar was killed near Galaxy Cinema in Naroda area on January 13, 2003, by a team of Detection of Crime Branch (Ahmedabad). In the FIR, the police had claimed that Jamal had underworld links and was out to "kill Narendra Modi".

A class IX dropout from Bhavnagar, Jamal had reportedly fled to Mumbai after being booked for a petty crime in 1997.

Barot is also facing charges in the 2002 Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

The CBI's FIR in the Sadiq Jamal encounter case also names D G Vanzara (former encounter specialist now in jail in the Sohrabuddin encounter case), former DGP of Gujarat K R Kaushik, CID chief P P Pandey, Daya Nayak and Rajinder Kumar, an officer in the Intelligence Bureau.

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