Sohrabuddin encounter case: Another witness turns hostile

Yadvindar Singh Sidhu, in his statement to the CBI in November 2011, claimed that a team of Gujarat police visited his dhaba near Pune in 2005

The prosecution on Wednesday declared another witness hostile in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. It examined Yadvindar Singh Sidhu, owner of a roadside eatery (dhaba).

Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi (HT)

Sidhu, in his statement to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in November 2011, claimed that a team of Gujarat police visited his dhaba at Sahaipur village in Daund near Pune on the Pune highway in 2005. He had said that the team had stopped at his dhaba early in the morning with a dreaded criminal, who was occupying the backseat of a TATA Sumo.

He had said that the team asked him to deliver food to Sheikh, who was handcuffed. He said that he remembered the incident as it was rare that the police stopped at his dhaba.

The prosecution had claimed that after kidnapping Sheikh and his wife from a bus, the cops carried them in a TATA Sumo. They were on their way to Ahmedabad but halted at Sidhu’s dhaba for food.

However, when Sidhu was examined by the prosecution on Wednesday he denied that any such incident took place. He claimed that it was usual for the cops to visit his dhaba daily. Sheikh, a local gangster, his wife and their partner were travelling on a Hyderabad-Sangli bus when they were allegedly abducted by the Gujarat police in 2005.