Nayabuddin Sheikh, brother of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, has moved the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court's decision to uphold acquittals of 22 accused, including 21 police officers, in a 2005 case involving staged 'encounter' killings.
On August 13, Nayabuddin Sheikh filed a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court’s May 7 judgement that dismissed appeals against the acquittals in the 2005 case involving the alleged staged ‘encounter’ killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati, and the alleged murder of his sister-in-law Kausar Bi in Gujarat. The High Court had earlier upheld the acquittals of 21 police officers, including several sub-inspectors.
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a wanted criminal, was killed by the Gujarat Police in November 2005 in an ‘encounter’, which is alleged to have been staged. He and his wife were travelling by bus from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra when they were stopped by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police, allegedly abducted and shot dead near Gandhinagar. Prajapati was the sole witness to the murders but was shot dead in another ‘encounter’ in December 2006. Kausar Bi was also allegedly raped by a sub-inspector before being murdered.
In December 2018, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court acquitted all persons accused in the matter. The court held that the prosecution had failed to prove a conspiracy beyond reasonable doubt. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah, who is now the Union home minister, was among the persons acquitted earlier in the case.
In April 2019, Nayabuddin Sheikh and another brother of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Rubabuddin Sheikh, challenged the acquittal before the High Court, alleging that the trial was flawed and that several witness statements had not been recorded accurately.
Source:
Scroll.in
