Gujarat ATS Cop surrenders

A police inspector, wanted by the Gujarat CID in connection with the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a fake encounter, on Sunday surrendered to the agency.

A police inspector, wanted by the Gujarat CID in connection with the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a fake encounter, on Sunday surrendered to the agency.

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Balkrishna Chaube, an inspector with the Gujarat Anti- Terrorist Squad (ATS), was arrested after he surrendered in Gandhinagar, officials said.

According to the CID, Chaube was posted at the Arham bunglow farm house on the outskirts of Gandhinagar where Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were kept by a joint team of policemen from Gujarat ATS and Rajasthan's Special Task Force (STF) that conducted the fake encounter in November 2005.

Chaube could be a key witness to Sheikh's stay in the farm house and the disappearance of Kausar Bi, who was killed after her husband's death, CID sources said.

He will be produced in court tomorrow to seek his remand, they said.

With Chaube's arrest, the Gujarat CID has arrested nine policemen of the state ATS and Rajasthan's STF, including D G Vanzara, a senior IPS officer who headed the entire operation and is the main accused in the case.

While Vanzara and two other IPS officers were arrested immediately, the others were arrested subsequently or surrendered. Only one official Dy SP N K Amin, who works with the CID but is accused in the case as he was named by one of the arrested policemen, was let out on bail as he had procured an anticipatory bail.

Though Amin was not part of the fake encoutner team, he is accused of helping out Vanzara, his former boss.