Tulsi Prajapati encounter case: Hearing adjourned till June 6

Mumbai, May 23: A sessions court on Friday adjourned till June 6 the hearing in the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case in which former

Minister of State for Home

is one of the accused.

The court staff recorded the presence of all the advocates and some of the accused and deferred the matter for hearing on June 6, as the designated CBI judge was on leave.

A special CBI court had on May 9 issued summons to Shah and others accused in connection with the case. Earlier, the case was transferred from Gujarat to Mumbai court.

The CBI had filed a charge sheet in the case last September against Shah, the close aide of BJP leader Narendra Modi, and 18 others, including several police officers.

According to CBI, gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi were abducted by Gujarat's Anti-Terrorism Squad from Hyderabad and killed in an alleged fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005.

Following this, Tulsiram Prajapati, a key eye-witness to the encounter, was killed by police at Chapri village in Banaskantha district of Gujarat in December 2006, the probing agency said.

According to CBI, Shah, as Minister of State, was allegedly involved in the conspiracy which led to the fake encounters.

PTI