Slamming the Congress on its reaction after the party’s leader Rahul Gandhi was convicted in a defamation case and subsequently disqualified from the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Amit Shah said that when he was arrested in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh ‘fake encounter’ case, he and the party had handled it calmly without taking to the streets. Read excerpts from the interview here
During the interview with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi, Shah recalled, “The Congress did not file a corruption case against us. An encounter took place, and I was the home minister of that state, and the CBI registered a case against me and they arrested me. The CBI recorded me, which should still be there if the Congress had not removed it. In 90% of CBI’s questions, the refrain was ‘why are you getting tense? Just take Modi’s name, and we will free you.’ We did not wear black clothes, we did not protest.” Live Updates from the Summit
“An SIT was formed against the CM (Narendra Modi). There was no corruption case. There was a fake riot case filed, which the Supreme Court had dismissed. We did not create a hue and cry. We never wore black clothes and blocked the workings of Parliament. And I will tell you the result, they arrested me, I got bail within 90 days by the High Court, which said there are no evidence against me. I applied for acquittal in a Mumbai court, the case was taken out of Gujarat, where it said the CBI filed the case on the grounds of political vendetta that’s why we quash all charges against Amit Shah. We didn’t create a scene.”
‘Full Faith in Judiciary’
When Shah was arrested in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh ‘fake’ encounter case in 2010, he had expressed ‘full faith in the judiciary.’
“I have full faith in the judiciary and I am sure the allegations against me will be cleared by the courts,” Shah said after he appeared during a press conference called by state BJP president R C Faldu at the BJP headquarters in Ahmedabad.
Shah claimed that he was innocent and said that charges against him were “fabricated, politically motivated and were on the instruction of Congress government” and demanded that his entire questioning by the CBI should be video-graphed.
In the interview, Shah said that despite Congress’ allegations of misuse of central agencies, it was him who had faced the real misuse.
How Had Congress Reacted to Shah’s Arrest?
At the time, the BJP had condemned Shah’s detention, accusing the central government of manipulating the CBI, an allegation that the Congress disputed, saying that the inquiry agency would not risk the anger of the Supreme Court by levelling false allegations.
“Do you think CBI is full of a bunch of fools who will risk their entire career by making false allegations, non-existing allegations which are going to be examined by the Supreme Court,” then Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi had said.
“Charge sheet is not made overnight. Charge sheet is a collection of evidence…. Here over five-six months of investigation the CBI has got enough evidence against Amit Shah,” Singhvi said.
The Congress had also pushed for Modi’s interrogation in the case. After Shah’s arrest, the party had said ‘Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi should also be prepared to face some “uncomfortable” questions in the probe.’ Shah had recalled in the Rising India Summit interview how he was repeatedly pressured by agencies to give Modi’s name in the investigation.
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