Two more turn hostile in Sohrabuddin case

Mumbai: Two more witnesses in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case on Tuesday turned hostile. These witnesses were related to the panchnama of hand wash of Sohrabuddin’s body but witnesses said nothing happened before them and they were made to sign documents. So far the prosecution has examined around 55 witnesses, of which 37 have been declared as hostile by the court.

On Tuesday during the trial, the special public prosecutor B. P. Raju examined two witnesses in the court. These witnesses were examined, as the police had taken a sample of Sohrabuddin’s body’s hand wash in front of these witnesses. Though the statement of these witnesses said that the police had taken sample of hand wash in front of them after due procedure, but when they were called to the witness box, they said they were not aware of any such thing and that nothing happened before them.

They witnesses said that they had gone to watch a movie and were called by police to draw a panchnama, but the police only asked them to sign some documents and nothing happened before them. After hearing this, the CBI counsel Raju requested the court to declare these witnesses hostile and the judge declared them hostile.

The procedure of taking hand wash differs case to case and the experts can use different chemicals in the procedure, depending upon what kind of evidence they are expecting from it. These witnesses were called to prove that this procedure was done.

Sheikh was killed in an alleged fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005, after which his wife disappeared and was believed to have been done to death. Police at Chapri village in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district allegedly killed Prajapati, an aide of Sheikh and an eyewitness to the encounter, in December 2006.