Vanzara’s Asaram connection

Suspended IPS officer D G Vanzara’s resignation letter is dated on the day self-styled godman Asaram,who is also the officer’s spiritual guru,was arrested in a sexual assault case. The two share a guru-shishya relationship,leading to speculation on Tuesday that the developments may be linked.

Mediapersons recall that as the incharge of Ahmedabad crime branch and ATS,which is also the time when back-to-back police encounters took place,Vanzara openly expressed his faith in Asaram,a picture of whom was saved on his mobile phone screen,as his “saviour”. Interestingly,law caught up with Asaram a year after Vanzara went to jail in the Sohrabuddin case. The encounter took place in 2007,and the mysterious deaths of the boys studying in Asaram’s gurukul in Ahmedabad surfaced in 2008.

The chargesheet recently submitted by the CBI in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case also confirms the connection between Vanzara and Asaram. An armed police constable,Amarsinh Vanzara,has said in his statement to the CBI that on June 15,2004,he,along with two other policemen,had gone to Asaram’s ashram in Motera to bring milk for the IPS officer.