The CBI on Tuesday filed a supplementary chargesheet in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh ‘fake encounter’ case, naming BJP leader and former Rajasthan minister Gulabchand Kataria and businessman Vimal Patni, besides senior IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre N Balasubramanyam and another police official from the State.
Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi were allegedly abducted by Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorism Squad from Hyderabad and killed in a fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005.
Kataria is the second high profile politician to be named in the case after former Gujarat Minister Amit Shah, considered close to Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Kataria faces charges of murder along with the three others. Balasubramanyam, currently an IGP, and the then Inspector Ch Srinivas Rao, now a DSP rank officer, allegedly helped Gujarat Police execute the operation. The CBI said it was alleged that Sohrabuddin, a small-time criminal, had demanded `24 crore as protection money from Patni and that was why he was eliminated. Kataria was allegedly a link between Patni and Shah.