With three IPS officers being arrested for allegedly faking the November, 2005 encounter in which Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed, questions are now being asked on the disappearance of his wife, Kausar Bibi, and the subsequent killing of Tulsiram Prajapati, the sole witness to the encounter.

While Sheikh’s family fear Kausar Bibi may have been killed, a report filed by the CID (Crime) suggests Kausar was with Sheikh when they, along with another man, were taken off from a Hyderabad-Sangli bus by men who appeared to be policemen on November 23.

According to the CID probe conducted by Geetha Johri, the couple was taken to a private farmhouse, Disha, in Jamiatpura village on November 24. A DySP in ATS had apparently sought the farmhouse for “interrogation”. On November 26, when Sohrabuddin was killed in the morning, his wife was in ATS custody and taken away in a car. Investigations also revealed that the staff at the farmhouse were forced by the ATS to change their statements.

Sheikh’s brother Rubabuddin, in his petition in the Supreme Court, alleged that Tulsiram Prajapati, the sole witness to the encounter, was also killed on December 28, 2006. By then, the CID had begun probing the case. The CID had examined the possibility of Kausar Bibi being murdered, her body exhumed and burnt to destroy evidence.

According to Gujarat police, Prajapati was wanted in a number of murder and extortion cases and was killed in an encounter after he fled from Rajasthan police custody near Himmatnagar. Rajasthan police was said to have been moving him from Udaipur to Ahmedabad by train when he “escaped”. Prajapati was shot by Banaskantha police while trying to flag down vehicles on Abu Road.

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