CBI calls Narendra Modi's aide Amit Shah to Delhi for questioning in Prajapati case

NEW DELHI: Former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah, considered a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, has been called to Delhi for questioning by the CBI in connection with the 2006 fake encounter of Tulsiram Prajapati, a key witness to the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausarbi.

CBI asked Shah, who is out on bail after being arrested in the Sohrabuddin case, to appear at the agency headquarters for questioning in the Prajapati case.

The interrogation is expected to be held as early as tomorrow during which CBI is expected to confront the BJP leader with telephone records about him being allegedly in touch with police officers including the Deputy Inspector General of Police (Jail) D G Vanzara.

Shah has been asked by the Supreme Court not to enter Gujarat as the agency alleged that he may tamper with the evidence or intimidate the witnesses. Prajapati, a close aide of Sohrabuddin, a gangster, was killed in an alleged shoot-out near Chapri village in Banaskantha district on December 28, 2006.

CBI took over the case last April following direction from Supreme Court and registered a case against "police officials of Gujarat and Rajasthan and others for alleged involvement in the criminal conspiracy of wrongful restraint, wrongful confinement, abduction and murder of Tulsi Prajapati and causing disappearance of evidence".