Fake encounter case: Controversial ex-IPS officer DG Vanzara walks free; says “Acche Din” have arrived
The former Gujarat top cop alleged that the state police was targeted for "extra legal political reasons".
DG Vanzara all smiles as he stepped out of Sabarmati Central Jail and met his supporters and crowd. (Source: Express photo by Javed Raja)
Behind bars for nearly eight years, Gujarat’s retired IPS officer D G Vanzara, an accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, walked out of Sabarmati Central Jail on Wednesday, amid drum beats, shehnai strains and bursting of firecrackers. As Vanzara – dressed in a pink sleeveless coatee over a spotless white kurta-pyjama – stepped out, the crowd gathered around the jail shouted, “Look, look, who is here! The lion of Gujarat is here.”
The former DIG, who has been a prime accused in the police encounter cases in Gujarat since 2002, and was out on bail, blamed the politics of the time for targetting policemen, and said “… acche din aa gaye (good days have arrived),” referring to his release while addressing the press before flying to Mumbai, where he is to be based, as part of the court’s bail conditions.
Vanzara said, “Gujarat police was singled out. It was targeted for eight years. The politics prevailing in India back then was responsible for it. Is there any state where such actions were not taken? Extra legal political reason is the only reason behind such cases. Most such cases happened in UP while Gujarat has minimum cases. They should not have targeted the police.”
Vanzara, who wrote three books of poems and collected academic degrees through distance education during his judicial custody, switched between Hindi and English as he said, “Despite being in jail for eight years, I am aware of what is happening in the outside world through newspapers and television. People said that good days would come… some say that they have come. We have got justice and now feel that good days have arrived.”
Vanzara said that it was due to the actions against terrorism by the state police that stopped Gujarat from becoming another “Kashmir”. He said that the attack on Akshardham, AMTS bus attack, BJP leader Haren Pandya murder were all part of the terror attacks. “The police only tried to stop Gujarat from becoming another Kashmir,” Vanzara said, adding that terrorism is a global problem and if police, Army, paramilitary forces take action, they should not be targeted.
Asked whether the then state government under Narendra Modi, who was chief minister then, knew about the encounters, Vanzara said, “Those who needed to know, knew.” He quickly added that he would not talk about what had happened in the past. He said that since the case was sub-judice, all he could say was that the “encounters were genuine while further investigations are fake”.
Asked why his own colleague, the then DIG Rajnish Rai, who was supervising the case, arrested him, Vanzara said, “All the investigations are false. Either it was done by CBI or CID.” Rai, who was supervising the investigations in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in the CID, had arrested Vanzara, IPS officers Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh M N of Rajasthan cadre on April 24, 2007, which were also the first arrests in the case. Along with Vanzara, all the 37 police officers accused in encounter cases are out on bail while BJP national president Amit Shah and retired DGP P C Pande have been discharged.
Vanzara also denied that his release would pose “threat” to the witnesses. Coming out of jail, Vanzara was accompanied by Maninderjit Singh Bitta, the chairman of All India Anti-terrorist Front (AIATF). Bitta said that Vanzara was a “victim of political terrorism”.
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