Ex-DIG Vanzara discharged in fake encounter killing case

Major setback for CBI, another IPS officer, Dinesh NM, also let off

In a major relief to former IPS officers D.G. Vanzara and Dinesh NM, a special court in Mumbai on Tuesday discharged the duo in the alleged fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi. With this, the number of accused discharged in the case has touched 15, including BJP chief Amit Shah.

The court ruling has come as a major blow to the CBI that has been probing the high-profile case. Special Judge Sunilkumar Sharma observed that there was no “prosecutable evidence” against the two former top cops. The judge also held that the CBI had arrested and prosecuted the two officers without a valid sanction from the Governors of the concerned states.

Vanzara and Dinesh, were top cops from Gujarat and Rajasthan cadre respectively and were accused of killing Sheikh, his wife and one Tulsi Prajapati – the sole eyewitness in the case. They were arrested by the CBI in April 2007.

Welcoming the ruling, Vanzara said, “I along with Dinesh had moved a plea seeking discharge and after the court scrutinised the material on record, both of us have been declared innocent. I had trust in the Indian judiciary and it has provided justice to me.”

According to the CBI case, Dinesh headed the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Vanzara was at the helm of Gujarat Police’s Crime Branch. The duo had picked up Sohrabuddin claiming that he had links with Pakistanbased terror outfit Lashkar. The central probe agency had charge-sheeted both Vanzara and Dinesh, terming them as the “main conspirators” of the staged encounter. It had invoked charges of kidnapping, murder and criminal conspiracy against the two officers, who are out on bail since September 2014.

The prosecution’s case was that in November 2005, Sheikh, along with his wife, were picked up by a Gujarat ATS team led by Dinesh and Vanzara from a bus coming from Hyderabad. It was alleged that the cops shot dead Sheikh dead somewhere in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar district and subsequently after a couple of days, killed his wife. The lone witness and alleged aide of Sheikh, Tulsiram Prajapati, was also gunned down in Banaskantha district in December 2006.

It was the CBI’s case that the ATS tried to project the killing as an encounter when Sheikh tried to break free.

The case, that had major political overtones, was initially tried in the Gujarat sessions court but the Supreme Court had in 2012 transferred the trial to Mumbai. This was after the CBI moved a plea seeking a “fair trial”.