Ahmedabad:
Amit Shah, the most trusted aide of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, is being interrogated by the CBI for the first time today in connection with the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi.
The CBI interrogators have arrived in the Sabarmati jail and will question Shah over three days starting today. And it will be done in judicial custody which is something usually done in high profile cases. This means Shah will be interrogated under the scrutiny of a judicial officer, and this will be video-taped. The CBI believes this will minimise allegations against the CBI by Shah or his party. (
Watch: Amit Shah - the insider)
The agency also wants Shah to be confronted by the other accused - top cops like DG Vanjara.
NDTV has access to a copy of the CBI's chargesheet against Shah which says the motives behind the Sohrabuddin fake encounter were two-fold. There was a financial motive as well as a political one. (
Read and watch: Sohrabuddin killed for money and politics, says CBI chargesheet)
The former Gujarat Minister of State for Home was arrested by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin case on July 25 amid high drama. Shah has claimed that he is innocent and that charges against him are "fabricated and politically motivated". (
Read: Modi minister Amit Shah surfaces, arrested for murder in Sohrabuddin case)
The CBI on Tuesday also arrested Rajendra Jirawala, owner of Arham farm where alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were kept for questioning, in connection with the fake encounter case, agency officials said. (
Read: Kausar Bi killing: Farmhouse owner arrested)
In November 2005, Sohrabuddin was shot dead on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. His wife, Kauser Bi, was also killed. At the time, Gujarat's Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) said that Sohrabuddin was a terrorist who planned to assassinate Modi. In 2007, the Gujarat state government admitted in court that Sohrabuddin and Kauser Bi had been wrongly killed. Some of the state's senior-most policemen are in jail, charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, and kidnapping. (
Read: Who was Sohrabuddin Sheikh?)
Phone records allegedly show that those same policemen were in close and constant touch with Shah once they picked up Sohrabuddin and his wife, Kauser Bi, from a bus headed from Hyderabad to Sangli. (
Read: Bus ride where Sohrabuddin was last seen alive) The policemen who framed and shot Sohrabuddin allegedly include DG Vanzara, who was the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Gujarat police, and Abhay Chudasama, the head of Ahmedabad's crime branch.