After the arrest of three IPS officers in the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and the alleged murder of his wife in 2005, the Gujarat CID (Crime) is now focussing on those policemen who executed the entire operation, police sources said on Thursday.

The CID has detained certain policemen of the ranks of Inspector, Sub-inspector and Constable, who were members of the team that tracked Sohrabuddin all the way from Hyderabad and then were part of the encounter near Ahmedabad.

"These policemen are being interrogated as they were part of the team that conducted the entire operation. There were some intelligence inputs involved to track Sohrabuddin. The policemen specifically knew by which bus Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati (a friend of theirs) were travelling in and also the seat numbers," the sources said.

The individual role of these policemen is being scrutinised carefully so that there are no loopholes in the investigation, they said.

A case may be registered against them soon and they are likely to be arrested once the CID is sure of their role in the crime, the sources said.

The CID team probing the fake encounter episode is also reported to have videotaped the 'confessions' of some of the accused policemen.