The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has given a clean chit to former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah amid the ongoing election season, telling an Ahmedabad court that it does not have sufficient evidence to charge the BJP leader in the 2004 alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three other persons while leaving it to the court to take the final call. In response to a plea filed by Gopinath Pillai, father of one of the deceased persons, that the CBI had ignored the evidence against Shah, the agency on Wednesday told the court that it did not have sufficient evidence.
“In response to an application filed under 319 of the CRPC in a Gujarat court by Gopinath Pillai around two months back, the CBI has responded saying that evidences collected in the case are in front of the court. Now it is for the honourable court to decide,” a CBI spokesperson said.
The court can, however, reject the CBI’s argument. In the Arushi murder case, a CBI court in Ghaziabad had rejected the agency’s closure report, ordering arraignment of Arushi’s parents as accused in the trial. But the CBI’s stance at this stage will come as a relief for Shah, who is managing the BJP’s election campaign in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.
In his petition filed in March, Pillai cited records of Shah’s phone calls with some of the accused police officers and statements given to the CBI by some officers who claimed to have overheard other accused officers mention that the fake encounter had the “approval” of Amit Shah as well as Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. But the CBI has termed this as “hearsay evidence” to dismiss it while firming up a charge-sheet.
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