GANESH PANDEY & TANNU SHARMA

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 5: As Chief Minister Narendra Modi thumbed his nose at the Supreme Court-in south Gujarat, he told crowds: “I am thumping my chest and declaring that Sohrabuddin’s encounter took place on the dharti of Gujarat. If I have done something wrong, hang me. But these people, next they will offer a chadar at Sohrabuddin’s grave” — he chose to overlook an affidavit his Government filed on March 23 in the apex court stating “there was prima facie evidence to suggest that the encounter in which alleged LeT operative Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed in November 2005, was a ‘fake’.”

And tonight, K T S Tulsi, senior advocate representing Gujarat in the case in the Supreme Court, told The Indian Express that he had decided to withdraw from the matter.Tulsi said that after what the Chief Minister had said, it would not be possible for him to appear in the case.

“On the one hand, the Gujarat government has filed a number of affidavits in the Supreme Court saying that it’s a cold-blooded murder and it has filed a chargesheet against its own police officers and is prosecuting them for murder. And now the Chief Minister says that the murder is justified. In this situation, the stand of the government and the Chief Minister is completely contradictory,” said Tulsi.

“I cannot defend such a case. I cannot accept that any police officer has a right to murder anyone. It’s a mockery of law,” he said.

Before admitting to the killing, the Gujarat police had been claiming that they and the Rajasthan police killed Sohrabuddin in a joint operation in 2005.

But after Rubabuddin, Sohrabuddin’s brother, moved the court, Gujarat finally admitted that Sohrabuddin had been killed in a fake encounter.

The government also made a delayed revelation on the disappearance of Kausar Bi, wife of Sohrabuddin. During a hearing on April 30, it confirmed that she was also killed and her body burnt.