Charges framed against former BJP MP, 6 others

Ahmedabad: Six years after RTI activist Amit Jethava was shot dead in front of Gujarat high court campus, a special CBI court framed charges in the case against seven persons including former BJP MP from Junagadh, Dinu Bogha Solanki.
The court on Thursday charged them with murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence apart from invoking other sections of the Indian Penal Code.Jethava was shot at by Shailesh Pandya, one of the accused, on July 20, 2010 a few days after he filed a PIL demanding action against mining mafia in Gir sanctuary, said special prosecutor Gaurang Vyas.
The Sola police started probing the matter but the case was taken over soon by the city crime branch. In a span of two months, six persons including Shiva alias Pratap Solanki the parliamentarian's nephew, were arrested. Other five were charged as executioners of Shiva's conspiracy.
The crime branch's probe however did not go beyond Shiva's involvement while Jethava's father Bhikhabhai continued to allege involvement of Solanki on the ground that his son had taken on the politician lately for his alleged illegal mining activities in and around Gir sanctuary. He was demanding a thorough probe on the basis of call details of the accused persons.
When police did not probe accusations levelled by Bhikhabhai, he approached Gujarat high court for transfer of investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The high court ordered further probe and the state government tasked then superintendent of police of Surendranagar district, Raghavendra Vats, to investigate the case. However, the probe did not make any headway.