Don't arrest Jadeja, treat him as witness: Court

Ahmedabad, May 24 (UNI) A local court today ruled that Nathubhai Jadeja, driver of Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) who surrendered on Tuesday before the court, should not be arrested in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and should be treated as a witness.

The ruling was given after Inspector General of Police (IGP) Geetha Johri, who is heading the investigation in the November 2005 fake encounter case, told the court today that no pressure was put on Nathubhai Jadeja to give the statement, as the videograph of his interview on April 26 was an evidence of his normal state.

In her submission before the Metropolitan Magistrate H A Shah, Ms Johri said Jadeja was just a prime witness and not an accused. He should have approached her if he had any complaints against the stated police officer since she was superior to Rajneesh Rai.

She told the court that Jadeja had not given any statement under duress.

Jadeja, who was the driver of Gujarat's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) at the time of alleged fake encounter on November 26, 2005, had pleaded before Judge Shah that since he feared persecution at the hands of investigating officers to take out forced statement under 164 CrPc (Criminal Procedure Code) he chose to surrender before the court.

In his statement issued to the court, he said ''Reading recently published news articles about the ongoing investigation into the fake encounter case, I have strong fear that I would be forced to make statment, which I do not intend to.'' ''I also retract everything that I had said during the interrogation by Rajneesh Rai on April 25,'' Jadeja stated while referring to his questioning by senior police officer Mr Rai on April 26.

UNI