PM on Amit Shah: CBI is not ’Congress Bureau of Investigation’

Mangalore Today

New Delhi, July 26, 2010:  The government is gearing up for a stormy Monsoon Session of Parliament and minutes before it began, the Prime Minister commented on the case of Amit Shah, the Gujarat minister who has been arrested by the CBI for murder.

Dr Manmohan Singh rejected BJP claims that the case against Shah is a concerted effort by the government to undermine Narendra Modi’s government in Gujarat.

 

"I refute this allegation that the CBI is being used... there is no truth in the allegation that it is ’Congress Bureau of Investigation’. It is part of the Supreme Court directive." Referring to the preparations of the government for attacks by the BJP on issues like price rise and the recent India-Pakistan talks, the PM said, "We are ready for discussion on any issue and there are substantive issues to be discussed and legislated."

But the BJP has hit back, saying the CBI has become a political arm of the government.

"CBI gives Jagdish Tytler clean chit and then arrests Amit Shah, that too, to protect someone like Sohrabbudding as if he is a national hero. There are so many cases where CBI has bungled under political pressure of the government. We will expose all that because CBI has become political arm of the government," BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu.

Amit Shah, the Minister of State for Home in Gujarat, has been accused of murder and criminal conspiracy in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. The CBI has been handling the case since January this year, after the Supreme Court expressed its discontent with the investigation conducted by the Gujarat police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Sohrabuddin and his wife, Kauser Bi, were killed on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in November 2005, allegedly by top officers of the Gujarat police, many of who are now in jail. Shah was reportedly in regular touch with these policemen as they illegally detained Sohrabuddin and Kauser, and then murdered them. The Gujarat police at the time insisted that Sohrabuddin was planning to assassinate the chief minister on behalf of terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
 
Statements given by various witnesses to the CBI allegedly implicate Shah for trying to influence testimony and the investigations of the Gujarat police. One witness - a police inspector - has reportedly said that Shah ordered the death of Kauser after Sohrabuddin’s murder- the minister is quoted as saying, in the witness’ statement- that he wanted Kauser’s body to be disposed off so that it could not be identified.

Shah had been missing all of last week. He was summoned by the CBI on Thursday and finally presented himself on Sunday for arrest, though not before addressing a press conference where he said the case against him was "politically motivated."
 
The BJP’s Central leadership and Narendra Modi have both emphasized the same line. Last week, four of the party’s top members, including LK Advani and Nitin Gadkari, boycotted a lunch hosted by the PM to express their unhappiness- they say the CBI being used by the Congress to settle political scores with its opponents.

That lunch was meant to help the government and Opposition parties discuss the agenda for the monsoon session of Parliament which begins today.

 

Courtesy: PTI