Ahmedabad, July 25: Former Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah has been arrested by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. He was taken to the CBI judge A Y Dave’s house, who has remanded him to 13 days in judicial custody. Shah will spend the next two weeks in Sabarmati Jail, but can appeal for bail.
Shah, who has been charged with murder by the CBI, arrived at their office in Gandhinagar this afternoon at about 2:00 pm, to answer to the summons sent to him. He was missing since Thursday and had not appeared when summoned repeatedly by the CBI for questioning.
He had sent in his resignation letter to Chief Minister Narendra Modi yesterday. The letter has been forwarded to the Governor.
Earlier in the day, Shah made a dramatic entry at a Press conference being held by the state BJP unit to declare that he is innocent, and that he will go straight to the CBI headquarters for questioning.
Surrounded by posters bearing legends proclaiming his innocence and slamming the Congress and the CBI, Shah calmly said all charges against him were "fabricated and politically-motivated" and that he would expose the people framing him.
"The chargesheet had already been made at the behest of the Congress. It is fabricated and had nothing to do with my summons. I am not afraid of anyone. We will fight the legal battle, and expose those who have tried to wrong us in court", said Shah.
Shah said he had received the CBI summons only yesterday and would respond to all charges. He requested that all his questioning before CBI be video-taped and be presented to court.
He said he would go to the CBI office after the press conference and "if they arrest me then all legal options are open to me."
The Modi protege added, " Gujarat is the only state which doesn’t have a case of terrorism pending, all cases have been solved. The police officers, who have wrongly charged with killing Sohrabuddin, have arrested 400 people in terror-related cases. That is not highlighted. There are 1700 encounters aross India, to highlight those in Gujarat, is a political conspiracy of the Congress government."
Shah said the Congress is misusing the CBI for electoral gains in Gujarat, " For the last 20 years, Congress has not won even municipal elections in Gujarat. Gujarat’s electorate has not accepted them and they’ve been comprehensively beaten in the polls. This is their only recourse."