Another witness turns hostile in Sohrabuddin case

Mumbai: Yet another witness in the Tulsiram Prajapati-Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake enco-unter case turned hostile on Monday, taking the total count of such witnesses to 74. The witness, who was in jail with Prajapati, in his earlier statement clai-med that he had translated in English a letter written to the National Human Rights Commission (NH-RC) on behalf of Prajapati.

On Monday however, he told the court that he did not know Prajapati and that he never wrote any letter for him.

The prosecution also examined two more witnesses, including a medical practitioner who had conducted a post-mortem of Prajapati’s body as well as examined police officer Ashish Pandey who sustained a bullet injury during the alleged encounter; and a co-prisoner of Pra-japati. Both witnesses sto-od by their statements.

The medical practitioner informed the court the det-ails about recovery of two bullets from Prajapati’s body and the nature of the injury sustained by the police officer. While co-prisoner Dinesh Gujjar told the court that he had introduced Prajapati to Hussain and that the latter had written a letter to the NHRC for Prajapati.

The prosecution case is that the witness Nasir-uddin Hussain was lodged in the same prison where Prajapati was kept. Praja-pati told Hussain in Hindi that he feared for his life following which Hussain translated the same in English in the letter he sent the NHRC. However, in court, Hussain said he knew Gujjar but had never met Prajapati and did not write any letter for him. Following this, on special public prosecutor B.P. Raju’s request, special judge S.J. Sharma declared Hussain as a hostile witness.