M A I N   N E W S

Amit Shah grilled by CBI, feigns memory lapse

Ahmedabad, July 28
Former Gujarat minister Amit Shah was on Wednesday quizzed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here in connection with the 2005 killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh but he feigned ignorance on many questions posed to him, sources said. A three-member CBI team, led by Superintendent Amitabh Thakur, began questioning Shah at the Sabarmati jail in the morning. However, Shah, a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, feigned ignorance and seemed in no mood to cooperate with the team, CBI sources said. His answers were evasive and he took refuge behind a failing memory.“I have never been to these places” or “I don’t remember” seemed to be his stock-in- trade answers, the sources said. Shah has been charged with ordering the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausarbi here.

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has been accused of killing Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a staged shootout on November 26, 2005. Arrested on Sunday and sent to judicial custody, Shah was permitted by the court to be questioned in jail for three days beginning Wednesday between 9.30 am and 5.30 pm with the proceedings to be video-graphed. In keeping with the directions of the court, the CBI team was accompanied by two videographers and a lawyer besides the jail superintendent. — IANS