HC allows Rajasthan police officers to withdraw applications

Ahmedabad, June 18 (UNI) The Gujarat High Court today permitted the counsel of three Rajasthan police officers to withdraw their applications against the lower court order rejecting their anticipatory bail in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, after it had indicated that it may reject them.

The court granted the permission after Gujarat government and counsel of all police officers made lengthy submissions to Judge Aquil Quereshi.

The three police officers -- Abdul Rehman, Shyam Singh and Himanshu Singh -- moved the High Court against the lower court order.

The government, in its submission, had pointed out that Rehman was the complainant of the fake encounter case to the Anti- Terrorists Squad (ATS) police station. Besides this, all police officers were present at the time of crime.

''We have withdrawn the petition for getting anticiptory bail after the court expressed its intention of rejecting the application,'' the counsel of police officers Advocate Mitesh Amin told mediapersons.

The High Court observed that the lower court had also issued warrants against them and investigating agency too has ample evidence to implicate them in this case of encounter.

''As they are police officers, they know very well the method of investigation and also they are not cooperating with the investigating agency,'' the court noted.

In all six police officers, including three IPS officers, have been arrested and lodged in the Sabarmati jail so far. They are DIG D G Vanzara who headed the Anti-Terrorist Squad at that time, his assistant Rajkumar Pandian, an SP, and another SP M N Dinesh, an officer with Rajasthan police.

UNI