Cop denies writing FIR in Sohrab case

Mumbai: A police officer from Rajasthan on Wednesday stated before the court that he knows Hindi and all official works are done in Hindi in their state. The FIR registered in connection with Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s encounter is in Gujarati which confirms his claim that he has not registered the FIR in connection with Sheikh’s encounter.

The special CBI court conducting the trial in the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh and 2006 Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case on Wednesday continued recording statements of accused under section 313 of CrPC. There are 22 accused in the case and now statements of only 5 accused are remaining to be recorded.

Police inspector Abdul Rehman’s statement had started on Tuesday and concluded on Wednesday. On Tuesday he had told the court that he did not visit Gujarat during the period when Sohrabuddin was killed in an encounter and he was not part of the team that was involved in the case. He had further claimed that someone misused his name to register FIR in connection with Sheikh’s encounter. On Wednesday, he elaborated on the same and said that in his state all the official work is carried out in Hindi and he doesn’t know Gujarati language.

According to him the FIR is registered in Gujarati language and it is in typed format. He told the judge S.J. Sharma that the complaint would have been in Hindi and not in Gujarati had he registered the FIR. He also pointed out to the court that the officer who had written the complaint in his testimony told the court that he had never seen him in office of ATS in Gujarat.

He further said that the CID filed three charge-sheets in the Tulsiram Prajapati’s encounter case but never named him as an accused. However, as soon as the case was transferred, they falsely implicated him in this case too.

The court on Wednesday recorded statements of ASI Narayan Sinh, constable Yudhvir Sinh, Kartar Sinh, Gujarat inspector V.A. Rathod and N.V. Chauhan too.