Court turns down Vanzara’s plea in Ishrat Jahan case

AHMEDABAD: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Tuesday rejected pleas by former Gujarat police officers DG Vanzara and NK Amin seeking the dropping of charges against them in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

The Gujarat police killed Jahan, 19, who was from Mumbra near Mumbai, along with three men -- Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar -- on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in June 2004.

They had claimed that the four had terror links and plotted to kill then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

A Gujarat high court-monitored Special Investigation Team concluded the four were killed in a “fake encounter”.

The high court later transferred the case to the CBI, which charged seven police officers including PP Pandey, Vanzara and G L Singhal in 2013 with kidnapping, murder and conspiracy.

The CBI court rejected the pleas, observing their role was “greater” than Pandey.

Special judge JK Pandya asked the CBI to submit a complete report on the case by September 7. Vanzara, a former deputy inspector general, had sought to have charges dropped against him citing parity with Pandey. The charges were dropped against Pandey, a former acting director general, in February this year for want of evidence.

Vanzara has called the CBI’S charge sheet in the case “concocted” and argued there was “no prosecutable material” against him. The former Gujarat anti-terror squad chief called statements of witnesses “highly suspicious”.