A special CBI court here today reserved the order on the bail application of former Mumbai-based journalist Ketan Tirodkar, arrested in Sadiq Jamal encounter case of 2003. The court will pronounce its order on September 15.
In the bail application before special CBI judge K B Gujarati, Tirodkar has claimed that he spent three years in a Mumbai jail following his arrest by Maharashtra Police in the Sadiq Jamal encounter case, and he could not be arrested twice in the same case.
Arguing in person, Tirodkar said he deserved bail, as he himself had come forward to disclose the facts about the encounter. “I had revealed everything in my affidavit, so now there should not be any apprehension about my running away or not cooperating with the investigation,” he said.
CBI arrested Tirodkar on July 5, 2012. Opposing his bail application, CBI argued that Tirodkar himself had confessed to his complete involvement in the encounter.
Jamal, a resident of Bhavnagar, was killed in encounter by Gujarat police in Ahmedabad on January 13, 2003. But genuineness of the encounter became an issue after Tirodkar filed an affidavit before a court in Mumbai that he was witness to Jamal’s hand-over to Vanzara and other cops from Gujarat by `encounter specialist’ police officer Daya Nayak a few days before the alleged encounter.
The High Court, last June, ordered CBI probe upon a petition of Sabbir Jamal, Sadiq’s brother.
