Highly placed sources in the Police Bhavan in Gandhinagar told Newsline on Saturday that Sharma has written to Gujarat DGP P C Pande, expressing his willingness to join back the state police.

“The letter was received earlier this month. It is being worked out where he could be posted once he comes back,” said a senior IPS officer, who did not wish to be named.

A 1992 batch IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre, Sharma’s last posting with the state police was as a superintendent of police (SP) in the Gujarat CID (Crime). He was sent on a deputation to the CBI as SP in Gandhinagar on February 17, 2004. He got promoted and later joined the CBI in Mumbai as a DIG (Economic Offences) on May 14, 2007.

It may be noted here that Sharma had provided the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) with a set of two compact discs containing records of all mobile phone calls made in and around Ahmedabad during the 2002 riots.

He had procured the call records from Cellforce and AT&T, which were providing mobile phone service at that time.

He had also presented these CDs to the Justice U C Banerjee commission after the Nanavati commission (both set up for inquiry into the 2002 riots) refused to take it at face value.

Sharma, at that time, was the DCP (control) in Ahmedabad and was asked by the then Ahmedabad police commissioner and the present Gujarat DGP, P C Pande, to assist the police probe in some post-Godhra riot cases of Ahmedabad.

“I was told that there will be no written order for this. The nine cases I was to assist, included the Naroda Patiya, the Naroda Gam and the Gulberg Society massacres,” Sharma had told the Nanavati commission in his depositions.

As DCP (control), Sharma procured records of all the phone calls made and received in the specified time along with the users’ locations.

“It was an election year and there were media reports accusing politicians and police for the mayhem. As a police officer, I wanted to know the truth and only the truth. I had, therefore, asked for specific locations of mobile phone users during that period,” he had told the Nanavati commission.

He was SP Western Railway, Vadodara until February 15, 2002. The Godhra railway station, where S 6 coach of the Sabarmati

Express was torched that year comes under the jurisdiction of this office. Sharma was transferred to Bhavnagar, and during his brief tenure as SP from February 27 to March 26, 2002, he had successfully controlled rioting in the district. The Modi government, however, shunted him to the low profile post of DCP in the Ahmedabad police's control room on April 8, 2002.

Less than a week after he got the CDs in June 2002, Sharma was taken off the riot probe and sent to group 11 SRP at Vav near Surat on July 6.