Senior BJP leader wants Gujarat killings probed

TRIVANDRUM: Putting Amit Shah in the dock, veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha has demanded a Supreme Courtmonitored re-investigation into the murder of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, Kauser Bi.

Last week, disturbing details emerged about the death of Brij Gopal Harkishan Loya, the judge who was hearing the matter, and how Shah, president of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP managed to escape the law.

“The allegations are very serious, and there should be a Supreme Courtmonitored inquiry into the matter,” the former federal minister told a regional television on Sunday.

“The more important issue is the manner in which the case was disposed of, the manner in which the judges were changed, the manner in which the judgment was pronounced and the allegations against a chief justice, all these are very serious issues.”

Loya, 48, was presiding over the special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to decide on the involvement of Shah, then home minister of Gujarat, in the death of Sheikh.

He died during a train journey and the judge who replaced him exonerated Shah, and the BJP had come to power in New Delhi by then. The SC shifted the trial from Gujarat to Mumbai in 2012 and ordered for one judge to hear the CASE From start to inish.

However, THE irst JUDGE JT Utpat was transferred in June 2014 after he reprimanded the ruling party president for failing to appear and Loya soon took over.

Six months later he died of a “heart attack” and in 29 days MB Gosavi, his successor, exonerated shah before even the trial started and the CBI failed to appeal for obvious reasons. More acquittals, all top cops, followed.

“You know the whole process had been compromised. So it’s for the judiciary now to clear its name,” the veteran leader who has not been on good terms with Modi told Manorama News.

Sinha, also a former diplomat, said the judiciary was the last resort of the citizen and it should restore its credibility after the judge’s family had raised serious allegations including an offer of bribe by the Mumbai HC chief justice before his death.

Other v et eranbjp dissident and former ministers, Arun Shourie and Shatrughan Sinha, had also raised similar demands after caravan citing interviews with loy a’ s relatives on Monday exposed glaring inconsistencies in the cardiac arrest story.