Trial resumes after break, 2 more witnesses turn hostile

Resuming after nearly 15 days, the trial in the ‘controversial’ Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case on Monday, once again witnessed the trend of witnesses turning hostile. A total of three witnesses had appeared before the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court, out of which two turned hostile.

From November 2017 till date, a total of 53 prosecution witnesses have been examined by the special Judge Sunil Sharma. Interestingly, out of these, 36 witnesses have turned hostile and have retracted from their earlier statements recorded either by a Magistrate or the investigating team.

The three witnesses, all from Gujarat, deposed before special judge S J Sharma, who is conducting the trial in the case pertaining to the killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and close confidante Tulsiram Prajapati by the senior police officials from Gujarat and Rajasthan after dubbing them as terrorists.

The witnesses were the panchs, who had participated in the process of preparing the panchnama of the seizure articles from the spot and also of Sohrabuddin’ autopsy.

Two witnesses of the three, were present and had seen Sohrabuddin’s dead body before post mortem was conducted on it. In their statements before the investigators, both the witnesses had stated they had seen the articles like a chain and some other accessories on Sohrabuddin’s person. The duo on Monday failed to recall if they had even seen Sohrabuddin’s body or if any chain or accessories were shown to them.

Apart from them, another panch witness testified. He was the one who was present when the investigators had seized the motorcycle, which the accused cops claim was used by Sohrabuddin to escape. He had also recorded the seizure of the blood stains and the mud sample from the spot where Sohrabuddin was shot to death.Deposing in Gujarati language, the witness said, “I remember each and every detail of that day and also of the spot.”