IPS officer tampered with records: Witness

Mumbai (PTI): Senior IPS officer Geeta Johari, who supervised the investigation in Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case before CBI took it over, manipulated the records to protect the accused officers at the behest of former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah, a police officer has said in a statement. The trial of the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case has been shifted to a Mumbai court, where Johri is one of the accused along with Amit Shah.

As per the prosecution case, the Apex court in 2007 asked the Gujarat CID to investigate the allegation of Sohrabuddin's brother, Rubabuddin, about the fake encounter. The probe was done by the Deputy Superintendent of Police V L Solanki and was supervised by Geeta Johari, IGP-CID. Solanki, in a statement to CBI, has said Johari called him and asked him to tear up the case papers and make new case papers favouring the police officials accused of involvement in fake encounter, as instructed by Shah. However, Solanki did not obey and continued the investigation, he claims.

According to Solanki, during the investigation it was revealed that Tulsiram Prajapati was a key witnesses to the Sohrabduddin encounter and hence Solanki sought permission from Johari to interrogate him on December 16, 2006. But Johari allegedly told him that G S Raigar (then ADGP CID Crime, Gujarat police) had directed her not to proceed to Udaipur to examine Prajapati and wait till further order.

While Raigar in his statement to CBI, stated that he had received no such request through Johri. Sohrabuddin, a criminal, was killed in encounter by Gujarat police in November 2005.