Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of all 22 accused, including 21 police officers, in the alleged fake encounter killings of gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and associate Tulsiram Prajapati between 2005 and 2006.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad dismissed appeals filed by Sohrabuddin’s brothers, Rubabuddin and Nayabuddin Shaikh, challenging the December 2018 verdict of the special CBI court that had acquitted the accused citing lack of evidence and hostile witnesses.

The acquitted accused include junior-level officers from the Gujarat and Rajasthan police and the owner of a farmhouse in Gujarat where Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi were allegedly held before their deaths. The detailed order of the high court is yet to be released.

The special CBI court had earlier ruled that the prosecution failed to establish any criminal conspiracy or direct involvement of the accused in the alleged killings.

The case dates back to November 2005, when Sohrabuddin Shaikh, Kausar Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati were travelling by bus from Hyderabad to Sangli. According to investigators, a joint Gujarat and Rajasthan police team intercepted the bus near Zahirabad in present-day Telangana and detained the trio.

The CBI alleged that Sohrabuddin was killed in a staged encounter near Ahmedabad on November 26, 2005. Police had claimed he opened fire on officers and was killed in retaliatory firing. Kausar Bi was allegedly killed days later and her body burnt to destroy evidence.

Prajapati, considered a key witness in the alleged abduction and killings, was also killed in a police encounter near the Gujarat-Rajasthan border on December 28, 2006. Police claimed he was shot while trying to escape custody.

Following directions from the Supreme Court, the Gujarat CID investigated the matter in 2007 and concluded that the encounters were fake. The case was later transferred to the CBI in 2010, and the trial was shifted to Mumbai.

Initially, 38 persons, including IPS officers and politicians from Gujarat and Rajasthan, were named in the case. Between 2014 and 2017, 16 accused, including then Gujarat home minister Amit Shah, were discharged.

The remaining 22 accused were acquitted by the special CBI court on December 21, 2018, after 92 of the 210 prosecution witnesses turned hostile. The court had then cited insufficient evidence and failure of the prosecution to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt.

In their appeal before the high court, Sohrabuddin’s brothers alleged flaws in the trial process and sought a retrial, claiming that some witnesses later stated their testimonies were not correctly recorded by the trial court.