UPA govt 'misused' CBI to target Modi, Shah: J'khand CM

Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Wednesday alleged that the erstwhile UPA government had "misused" the CBI to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case.

Das claimed that Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh had "hatched a conspiracy to harass" Modi, who was the Gujarat chief minister at that time, and Shah, who was the state home minister.

"The Congress had indulged in politics to trap Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the name of a dangerous offender and is even now indulging in such efforts as it is the nature of the Congress to glorify terrorists," Das said.

He demanded that Gandhi and the Congress apologise publicly to Modi in view of a special CBI court accusing the agency of trying to "implicate political leaders" in the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake-encounter case.

The court had on December 21 acquitted all the 22 accused in the case, citing insufficient evidence and the prosecution's failure to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

Citing the acquittal, Das alleged that the probe was "intentionally diverted" to "implicate" Amit Shah and the "honest" policemen.

Special CBI court judge S J Sharma had observed that the investigating agency, instead of unveiling the truth, was out to "prove a pre-meditated script", Das told a press conference, where he read out excerpts from the court verdict.

"The special CBI court of S J Sharma had levelled serious allegations against the CBI, saying the entire probe is centred around to somehow implicate political leaders. The CBI somehow created evidence and placed recorded statements of witnesses which were false," he added.