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As the race to the general election heats up, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has responded to Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley's letter addressed to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking for the status of investigations against Gujarat government officials including Amit Shah.
Jaitley is learnt to have alleged that CBI was targeting Shah to finally implicate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. CBI has said that the cases are being closely monitored by the Supreme Court and there is no scope of deliberately targeting Shah and that it has enough prosecutable evidence, in the Sohrabuddin and Tulsi Prajapati encounter case.
CBI has however not commented on status of most cases since the matter is sub judice. A senior official also told that there is no need for the CBI to give any status report to BJP in this matter.
In the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, CBI while ruling out the involvement of the Intelligence Bureau as alleged by the BJP has said that “no bargaining exercise” (with police officers) has been carried out since the matter is being closely monitored by the Gujarat High Court. On BJP’s allegation that a political party had filed a petition in the case, CBI has said that the complaint was made by Shamima Kauser, mother of Jahan.
CBI has also mentioned the Harin Pandya murder case for which an appeal has been file by the investigation agency in the Supreme Court. All accused in the case were acquitted by the High Court. Jaitley had written to the Prime Minister with his queries regarding these probes on September 27, 2013.
