[private]The CBI today sought immediate transfer of the case from Gujarat for a “fair trial”, filing a status report in the Supreme Court on its six-month investigation into the 2005 killing of alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh.

Sources said that CBI expressed apprehension that the influence of “police officers and senior politicians” could deprive the agency to prosecute or investigate further.

In the alleged fake encounter the agency sought permission from the Supreme Court for “further investigation” into the involvement of the “political leadership”  of both Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Sources said that the arrest of the political leaders is going to increase further. The agencies are also looking keenly the killing of Tulsiram Prajapati who was accompanying Sheikh and his wife Kausar.

Sources said, just when an investigating officer, Geeta Johri, had decided to examine him as a “witness to the kidnapping” the killing of Prajapati took place. As an attempt to dissuade former Dy SP N K Amin from truning approver in the Sohrabuddin case incidentally, the Prajapati chargesheet filed today is viewed within the CBI circle. Sources said Amin, does not find mention in the Prajapati case chargesheet, who is already an accused in the Sheikh encounter case.

The CBI expects that the statements of police officers including Geeta Johri, O P Mathur and P C Pande will throw some light on an involvement of the political leadership in the whole case of fake encounter. Mathur retired as Director General, Communication and Pande retired as Director of Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Mathur was supervising the case of Sohrabuddin which was being investigated by the CID. K T S Tulsi Senior Advocate, representing CBI, asserted all accused are presumed innocent until found guilty by the court.[/private]