The Gujarat police has accepted as fake the encounter in which Tulsi Prajapati, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh murder case, was killed, top state CID officials have said.
"We believed that his (Prajapati) encounter was fake. So, we investigated the case and found involvement of some police officers," CID crime chief V V Rabari said.
District Superintendent of Police (DSP) of Dahod and IPS officer Vipul Agarwal was arrested last night for his involvement in Parajapati's encounter killing.
Another constable from Banaskantha district police, Vinod Choudhary, was also arrested today in connection with the encounter case from Palanpur.
Prajapati was killed by the Gujarat police in an encounter near Ambaji in Banaskantha district when he tried to escape from custody while being shifted from Rajasthan to Gujarat in December, 2006.
DIG I M Desai, supervising the case, said investigation was on and more arrests would be made as the probe progresses.
The investigating officer in the case Dy SP R K Patel of CID said there were 10 more persons involved in the case, which include a police inspector Ashish Pandya, who had actually fired the bullet that killed Prajapati.
"We are trying to locate Pandya but he was nowhere to be found. In all, there are 12 accused in the case, out of which two have been arrested while 10 are absconding," Patel said.
The Gujarat police's earlier claim that Prajapati was killed in an encounter when the accused was trying to escape after firing at the personnel escorting him was challenged by the forensic laboratory report and the Railway police.
The CBI, probing the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi in November 2005 had sought from Gujarat police papers regarding the Parajapati encounter case.
The CBI had also sought forensic documents which had questioned the claims of Gujarat police that three people threw chilly powder on the police party escorting Prajapati back to Rajasthan by train and got him released. They had also reportedly fired at the policemen on duty.
However, the Railway police had reported that no chilly powder was thrown on the policemen escorting Prajapati and the weapon recovered from the deceased was declared by the Forensic Scientific Laboratory as "jammed" and unable to fire.
The bullet injuries on the cops were believed by the experts as self-inflicted. CBI had registered a case last month against Gujarat police officials and members of Rajasthan ATS to probe the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Kausar Bi in 2005 on the directions of the Supreme Court.
The apex court had came down heavily on Gujarat police for failing to conduct impartial investigations and attempting to "mislead" apex court by filing conflicting action taken reports (ATRs). Fifteen police officers, including four IPS officers DIG D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandyan, Dinesh M N and Abhay Chudasama,are behind bar in this case.
