Congress seeks probe into witness claims over killing Pandya

The Congress on Sunday demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the claim by a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case that former IPS officer D.G. Vanzara had given a contract to kill Haren Pandya, a senior BJP leader in Gujarat.

"Sohrabuddin Shaikh knew that Pandya was killed in a cold blooded murder, plotted by the DG Police of Gujarat -- Vanzara," Congress leader Tom Vadakkan said at a press conference here.

"I'm not saying this, neither is the Congress, it is the witness Azam Khan's deposition before the CBI court," Vadakkan said demanding an inquiry.

Vadakkan's remarks came after Khan told a trial court in Mumbai on Saturday that Shaikh told him that he had got money from Vanzara to kill Gujarat's Home Minister and "he completed the job".

Khan, an associate of Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati, also claimed that while he had told the CBI investigator about it in 2010, the officer had refused to record it as part of his statement.

The Congress leader also urged Home Minister Rajnath Singh to give protection to the witnesses who have made these statement, "because we should not find them too in the obituary column suddenly".

Slamming the BJP government in Gujarat where the BJP has been in power for over two decades, Vadakkan questioned, "How can a serving Home Minister be killed on a morning walk?"

"The BJP government was in power and the enquiry is still unsolved and no interest on the part of the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and then Home Minister Amit Shah. The matter died a slow death - everybody is acquitted," he said.

Pandya was shot dead in Ahmedabad on March 26, 2003.

--IANS

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