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IPS officer probing Sohrabuddin case offers to quit:
Geetha Johri, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and a member of
the apex court-appointed probe committee in the 2002 post-Godhra
riots cases, has offered to quit the team after the Supreme Court's
remarks against her in the probe into the killing of Sohrabuddin
Sheikk in an alleged staged shootout.....
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New Delhi: Gujarat Police's
Inspector General
Geetha Johri has moved the Supreme Court for deletion of some of the
court's critical remarks against her during her probe into
Sohrabuddin Sheikh killing case.
Ujjain man Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed in a staged gunbatle by a
Gujarat police team near Ahmedabad in November 2005. The state
police then claimed Soharabuddin was a terrorist and planned to kill
Chief Minister Narandra Modi. His wife Kausar Bi and family friend
Tulsiram Prajapati, witnesses to the killing, were subsequently
eliminated.
Geetha Johri's lawsuit, seeking deletion of the remarks made against
her in the Jan 12 judgment by an apex court bench of erstwhile
Justice Tarun Chatterjee, who retired the same day, and Justice
Aftab Alam, was filed by advocate Heamantika Wahi.
The
lawsuit sought the deletion of remarks made against Johri,
particularly in para 59 of the judgment, which ordered an
independent Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the
killings.
Johri, contacted on telephone by IANS, confirmed the petition has
been filed for deletion of the remark.
The
Gujarat government had asked Johri to probe the alleged staged
killings of Sheikh, kauser Bi and Prajapati, based on a letter
Sohrabuddin's brother Rubabuddin Sheikh wrote to the apex court
registry. The apex court subsequently sent that letter to the
Gujarat government for follow-up action.
Though the state government replaced Johri with Deputy Inspector
General of Police (DIG) Rajnish Rai, the apex court subsequently
restored her as the head of the probe team.
Rubabuddin consistently appealed for a CBI probe, but the apex court
let the Gujarat police team led by Johri continue the investigation
and even let it file the charge sheet in the case.
But
eventually, noticing several lapses in the probe, the apex court
handed over the case to the CBI.
It
indicted Johri for virtually ignoring the probe into the killing of
Prajapati.
"No
justification can be found for the investigating officer Johri
walking out the investigation with respect to Tulsiram Prajapati's
death without even informing this court," the apex court remarked.
It
also censured Johri for "not carrying out the probe in right manner
and obfuscating the probe".
"We
have observed that from the record, it was found that V.L.Solanki,
an investigating officer, was proceeding in the right direction, but
Johri had not been carrying out the investigation in the right
manner," said the court.
It
also added: "We are of the view that her mentioning the criminal
background of Sohrabbuddin (in the probe report) and the discussion
among the accused officers concerning Sohrabbuddin was meant to
obfuscate the enquiry."
Soon
after the November 2005 killing, DIG D.G Vanzara of Gujarat Police
had announced Sheikh was a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist on a
mission to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other
prominent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.
During the probe into the staged killings of Sohrabuddin, his wife
and friend, the state police booked several of its officers,
including Vanzara and an Indian Service Police (IPS) officer from
the Rajasthan Police, and arrested them for their role into the
killings.
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