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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, a staunch defender of the BJP President Amit Shah, when he faced prosecution for the murder of gangster Sohrabuddin, his wife Kausar Bi and eyewitness in the case Tulsiram Prajapati, through a blog on Monday targeted Congress President Rahul Gandhi for implying that the Centre and the Gujarat government are influencing the cases from which the BJP President was discharged earlier, and all other accused in the case were acquitted by a trial court on December 21.
When the Special CBI Judge acquitted all accused in the Sohrabuddin case, Rahul Gandhi had tweeted, “No one killed Haren Pandya, Tulsiram Prajapati, Justice Loya, Prakash Thombre, Shrikant Khandalkar, Kausari Bi, Sohrabuddin Sheikh. They just died.” All these cases pertain to murders in Gujarat during the tenure of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi as Home Minister and Chief Minister respectively.
Jaitley responded by asserting that it is the Congress and not the BJP which has consistently undermined institutional integrity, especially of the central investigating agencies during the 10-year tenure of the UPA.
Letter to Manmohan Singh
Referring to a letter he wrote as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2013, Jaitley said, “On September 27, 2013, as the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, I had written to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a letter detailing the politicisation of the investigation in the Sohrabuddin, Tulsi Prajapati, Ishrat Jahan, Rajinder Rathore and the Haren Pandya cases. The copy of the letter is enclosed. Every word of what I have said in the letter over the next five years have proven to be true. This is irrefutable evidence of what the Congress did to our investigative agencies. Those who have recently shown a belated concern for institutional independence should seriously introspect what they did to the CBI when they were in power.”
He said the CBI Judge has acquitted all the accused in the Sohrabuddin murder case, the question of the Congress’ misuse of the investigating agency to target political opponents, especially the BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, is even more pertinent.
“The Special CBI Judge, Mumbai, who deals with CBI cases, has acquitted all accused in Sohrabuddin case. More relevant than the Order of the Acquittal is the observation of the Judge that, in the investigation, from the very beginning, investigating agency did not probe into the case professionally. The Congress President Rahul Gandhi, on the day of the judgment, raised the issue “that nobody killed Sohrabuddin”. It would have been more appropriate if he had asked the right question, namely, who killed the Sohrabuddin case investigation. If he had asked the right question, he would have got the right answer,” said the Finance Minister.
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