Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter: IPS officer destroyed leave records says CBI

Mumbai, Dec 5: A police officer facing trial for allegedly shooting Sohrabuddin Shaikh said through his counsel that investigations are not conducted on the basis of surmises, conjectures, presumptions and assumptions.

According to the Central Bureau of Investigation, Abdul Rehman, a police officer from Rajasthan was the officer who fired at Shaikh and later filed a complaint based on which the FIR was registered. Rehman, through his counsel denied the allegations and the same was submitted to the Special CBI court which is hearing the final arguments in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati encounter cases.

Rehman it may be recalled had last week given a statement to the court that he had not filed any FIR. I was pressurised by many persons to say that the FIR was genuine.
Meanwhile the personal assistant and gunman of discharged IPS officer Rajkumar Pandian said that a person who can't even move without the permission of his senior has been made an accused.

On the other hand, counsel for Ashish Pandya, who was accused by the CBI for shooting Prajapati said that it was an act of self defence. He said that Prajapati had attacked twice after which he was fired at. Pandya received a firearm injury on his left arm.

There were three bullet wounds on Prajapati's body and it is still not established if it was the bullet fired by Pandya that had killed him, the police officers counsel also said.

Pandya's counsel also argued that it has not been established if the injury on his client was self-inflicted.

The CBI however contended that former Gujarat ATS chief, D G Vanzara had asked IPS officer Vipul Aggarwal to summon Pandya, who was on leave to carry out the Prajapati encounter. The leave record was destroyed by Aggarwal, the CBI also said. Pandya however said that there was no evidence of any meeting to show that the accused was part of a conspiracy to kill Prajapati.