Ahmedabad: Additional DGP Geetha Johri failed to turn up before the CBI in Gandhinagar on Tuesday. This is the second time that the agency has summoned her for questioning in the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case.
On both the occasions, Johri failed to turn up. The IPS officer, said Gujarat police, is on leave till July 1. CBI sources said: “She is untraceable. We have not been able to contact her.” Gujarat police officials said that the senior IPS officer has taken a “headquarter leave”. Police officers avail this leave when they wish to go out of station. Gujarat cops too are unaware of Johri’s current whereabouts.
CBI officials want to question Johri about her stint in CID (Crime) in 2006 when Tulsiram was gunned down in a fake encounter in Banaskantha. The probe agency wants to know why Johri’s sub-ordinate police inspector V L Solanki was not allowed to go to Rajasthan to question Tulsiram. The history-sheeter was then lodged in a jail in Rajasthan.
Solanki had sought permission from CID (Crime) authorities to go to Rajasthan and question Tulsiram in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. Immediately after this development, Tulsiram was brought for a hearing in an Ahmedabad court. Later, while being taken back to Rajasthan by train he was killed in the encounter. Tulsiram and Sohrabuddin were partners in crime. CBI believes that Tulsiram was with Sohrabuddin when he was kidnapped from Hyderabad in 2005.
Sohrabuddin was killed in a fake encounter just days after this illegal abduction. His wife Kauserbi was also killed by Gujarat police a couple of days later. Solanki in his statement to CBI had claimed that Johri, at the behest of the then political bosses, had asked him to doctor documents of Sohrabuddin encounter probe.
