The Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter is an ongoing criminal case in Gujarat state of India, where the police killed a criminal, Sohrabuddin Sheikh on 26 November 2005, when his wife also disappeared. A year later, his friend Tulsi Prajapati, the sole witness, died on December 28, 2006, in another Gujurat police encounter shooting. Sohrabuddin Sheikh had been tied to extorting protection money from the local marble factories. The state government's lawyer, Senior Counsel K.T.S. Tulsi, later admitted before the Supreme Court that the "gun battle" in which S. Sheikh had died had been staged by the Gujarat police. Such encounters are known as "encounter killings" and in this case, as a "fake encounter".

It is suspected that the killing was orchestrated by senior police officers of the Gujarat Police Service, and was allegedly ordered by Gujarat's home minister Amit Shah. Shah, a senior politician in the Bharatiya Janata Party government and a close confidant of chief minister Narendra Modi, was allegedly involved in a large extortion racket that resulted in Sheikh's killing. Modi, as well as Gulab Chand Kataria, a senior BJP leader and ex-minister from the neighbouring Rajasthan state have also been investigated. More than 10 police officers were arrested, along with several top officials.

The Ishrat Jahan encounter case refers to the encounter killing of four people claimed to be Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives by the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch in 2004. The victims included Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year old college girl from Mumbai, and three men: Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Gulam Sheikh), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar. Multiple judicial inquiries by Indian authorities, in 2009 and 2011, concluded that the encounter was fake, and the victims were killed in police custody.

The encounter was carried out by a team led by DIG D.G. Vanjara, who was later jailed for his involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter. The police alleged that Ishrat and her associates were LeT operatives involved in a plot to assassinate the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. Later, an investigation was launched into the allegations that Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter. In 2004, a Lahore-based publication affiliated with LeT claimed that Ishrat and her companions were operatives, but in 2007, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of the LeT retracted the statement as a "journalistic mistake", offering apology to Ishrat's family. After a long investigation, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged. The decision was challenged by the Gujarat State government, and taken to the High Court. In 2010, some media outlets reported that the convicted terrorist David Headley had implicated Ishrat in terrorist activities in a statement given to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). However, the NIA called these reports as "baseless". After further investigation, in 2011, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) told the Gujarat High Court that the encounter was not genuine, and the victims were killed prior to the date of the staged encounter.

Narendra Damodardas Modi (Gujarati: નરેન્દ્ર મોદી; born 17 September 1950) is the current Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat. Born in a middle class family in Vadnagar, he was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his wife Heeraben. He has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since childhood also having interest in politics since adolescence. He holds a master's degree in political science. In 1998, he was chosen by L. K. Advani, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to direct the election campaign in Gujarat as well as Himachal Pradesh.

He became Chief Minister of Gujarat in October 2001, promoted to the office at a time when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel had resigned, following the defeat of BJP in the by-elections. His tenure as chief minister of Gujarat began on 7 October 2001, and he is the longest serving Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. In July 2007 he became the longest serving Chief Minister in Gujarat's history when he had been in power for 2063 days continuously. He was elected again for a third term on 23 December 2007 in the state elections, which he had cast as a "referendum on his rule".

Amit Shah (born 1964) is a Indian politician and former Home minister from Gujarat, member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is currently under judicial bail as one of the accused for kidnapping and encounter killing by the State Police of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, an alleged terrorist with more than 60 criminal cases against him, his wife Kauserbi and their friend Tulsiram Prajapati. The Supreme Court has directed that while his bail is under challenge, he is not permitted to enter his home state of Gujarat where he may influence the investigations as he was the Home Minister during the encounter killing. There has been questions raised about this Supreme Court ruling and if it was part of a Political witch hunt

Shah's father, Anilchandra Shah was a wealthy businessman. Shah worked as a stockbroker for some time. During this period he joined the BJP and came close to L K Advani. He managed several of Advani's election campaigns from the Gandhinagar (Lok Sabha constituency). He was then appointed Chairman of The Gujarat State Finance Corporation Limited, the youngest person in this post. He was later appointed chairman of the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank.