Gandhinagar, July 25: After eluding the CBI for four days, former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, a close aide of Narendra Modi, today surrendered before the probe agency which arrested him in Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case shortly after he made a dramatic appearance at a BJP media briefing.
 The 46-year-old Shah, who resigned from the Modi government yesterday following a charge sheet being filed against him, turned up at the BJP office in Ahmedabad, where he denied all the charges against him. He then drove to the office of the CBI which arrested him and produced him before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate A Y Dave here.
 Surprisingly, the CBI did not press for custody of Shah, who has been charged with murder, extortion, kidnapping and five other sections under IPC for the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi in 2005. He was remanded by the magistrate in judicial custody for 13 days till August 7 and later taken to Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad.
 “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, ending the suspense of his whereabouts since Thursday when he was first summoned by the CBI.
 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.
 Later Shah went to the CBI office in Gandhinagar. Waving to the mediapersons after alighting from his car, he found that officers of the probe agency were waiting for him.
 “The CBI officials told Shah that they will take him straight to the court to which he agreed,” BJP leader Vijay Rupani, who accompanied Shah, said.The BJP slammed Shah’s arrest accusing the central government of misusing the CBI, an allegation dismissed by the Congress which said that the probe agency would not risk the wrath of the Supreme Court by levelling false charges.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT
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