Tag: D.G. Vanzara

Eight People the Modi Govt Gifted a Get-Out-of-Jail Free Card to Since 2014

While anti-government activists are being rounded up under the draconian UAPA, here’s a quick look at some individuals accused of serious crimes who got away lightly for being on the right side of the political fence.

New Delhi: It’s become a new normal in Indian politics for students and activists to be incarcerated across India for expressing dissent and being vocal about certain actions and policies of the Narendra Modi government. The draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act – UAPA – has been clamped on almost all such persons, even for the flimsiest of charges.

In Assam, top leaders of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, a peasant rights group, were among the first to be charged under the UAPA for leading protests in the state against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Curiously, the chargesheet that the National Investigating Agency (NIA) finally filed this past week – after months of jail time for leaders of the rights group – could only cite the use of the phrase ‘Lal Salaam’ – or ‘red salute’, a greeting used by all communists in India, including those who fight elections – the uploading of a photo of Lenin on Facebook and referring to friends as ‘comrade’ as proof of the accused persons being ‘Maoist’. But this was enough to accuse hem and thereby allegedly waging war against the nation.

In Delhi too, Safoora Zargar, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal are among the student activists who took part in the anti-CAA protests against whom the UAPA has now been used in an attempt to accuse protestors of engineering the Delhi riots that broke out in February.

During the Emergency, hundreds of those who voiced their opposition to the Indira Gandhi government’s actions and policies were locked up under MISA the Maintenance of Internal Security Act). MISA was essentially a preventive detention law that gave the government wide latitude to detain individuals, without charge or bail, for up to extendable periods of 12 months at a time. MISA was repealed in 1978 but the UAPA today is arguably the new MISA – a law used essentially to keep politically inconvenient individuals in jail indefinitely, without the chance of getting bail – with the added benefit, in the eyes of the ruling party, of tarnishing its critics as ‘terrorists’.

In 2019, the Modi government amended Section 35 and 36 of the Act to pave the way for the executive to declare an individual a terrorist without charge or trial. Petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court to declare the amended UAPA violative of fundamental rights. The court issued notice to the Centre but the matter has not come up for hearing yet.

Even as the government, armed with the UAPA, is upping the ante against those protesting its policies, the Narendra Modi government has been lenient its attitude towards those on its side of the political-ideological fence even when they have been accused of serious offences. The process began with the CBI’s refusal to appeal the discharge of Amit Shah from the Sohrabuddin-Kauser Bi murder case in December 2014.

Among the eight individuals included in the list below are those who had been accused of terrorism, custodial killings, human rights violations and serious weapons-related offences – crimes that have cost several lives and which the government would have had no problem labelling as “terrorism” if they could have been pinned on its political opponents.

1. Kapil Baisala

Kapil Baisala

On February 1, Kapil Baisala, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, fired two rounds in the presence of the Delhi police at Shaheen Bagh where protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was underway. A supporter of the Modi government, he was vociferously opposed to those protesting the CAA. The image of him in the media – brandishing a country made pistol and aiming it at protesters – shocked the public.

Baisala had shouted “Jai Shri Ram” and said, “Hamare desh me aur kisi ki nahi chalegi, sirf Hinduon ki chalegi (only Hindus will rule in our country, no one else),” as he was taken into custody by Delhi police.

He was nabbed from the spot along with his weapon. However, on March 6, a Delhi court granted him bail on the basis of submissions by his lawyer which included.

  1. Kapil has deep roots in society and there was no possibility of his absconding from the law.
  2. Kapil has clean antecedents and he had never been involved in any other case in the past.
  3. Kapil has the responsibility of his wife and minor child.
  4. No purpose would be served by keeping the accused in judicial custody. Trial will take time.
  5. The complaint and other witnesses in the case are police officials and as such there was no apprehension of influencing them.
  6. Investigation qua the applicant/accused has already been completed and he is no more required for the purpose of investigation.
  7. Even after the PC to Investigating Officer, nothing was recovered from the applicant/accused.

South East district magistrate Gulshan Kumar granted bail to Baisala “considering the totality of facts and circumstances”. As per the court order, the police opposed the bail application, stating that the allegations against Baisala were “very serious and the case was at an initial stage”. However, it is not clear if the Delhi police has appealed the grant of bail in a higher court.

Curiously, Baisala was only charged under Section 336 (endangering the life or personal safety of others) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and various sections of the Arms Act. Even though  a Central minister, Anurag Thakur, had actually prompted BJP supporters in Delhi to chant, “Shoot the traitors”, three days earlier, the police do not appear to have probed the conspiracy angle to the crime.

Also read: Let Us Gratefully Count the Leadership Dividend Offered by Narendra Modi

2. Manish Sirohi

Even as Delhi was reeling from communal violence in which several victims were killed by gunshots, the Delhi police arrested an arms dealer, Manish Sirohi, and recovered guns and ammunition from him. He was charged with ordinary IPC and Arms Act offences.

However, Safoora Zargar, Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and other anti-CAA activists have been arrested under UAPA when the only concrete accusation against them is that they blocked a road during a protest and no arms or ammunition were recovered from them.

Also read: Delhi Communal Violence: Jail for Pregnant Safoora, Bail for ‘Gun Supplier’ Sirohi

While Safoora – who has never been involved in any other case prior to her arrest – is languishing in jail even though her lawyer had submitted to the court in her bail application that she is undergoing a complicated pregnancy and runs the risk of catching COVID-19 in jail, Sirohi was granted bail by a Delhi court on May 6. Incidentally, one of the reasons cited was the threat of contracting coronavirus while in detention.

3. Milind Ekbote

Milind Ekbote.

Hindutva leader Milind Ekbote – accused of inciting anti-Dalit violence at an event held on January 1, 2018, to commemorate the Bhima Koregaon battle – was released on bail in April that year, just weeks after he was arrested. The Maharashtra police had arrested him after his anticipatory bail was rejected by the Supreme Court. One person lost his life in the violence.

In January 2019, a Pune court further relaxed his bail conditions, allowing him to participate in public rallies and speak to the media.

Another Hindutva leader, Sambhaji Bhide, was a co-accused in the case but was never arrested by police. An RTI reply showed that six months before the Bhima Koregaon violence, the then Devendra Fadnavis government had withdrawn six prior cases against Bhide, citing lack of evidence.

The focus of the Bhima Koregaon case soon changed to a set of activists, some of whom had been associated with an event held a day before the violence took place. In November 2018, the Pune police filed a 5,000-page chargesheet. News reports said it virtually absolved Bhide and Ekbote of all charges, and instead accused five human rights activists and lawyers of inciting the violence through their “inflammatory” speeches. Only two of those arrested by police had, however, attended that event.

While the new state government under Uddhav Thackeray was mulling over setting up an SIT to handle the case, the Centre handed it over to the agency under its direct control – the NIA – from the Pune police without consulting the state. Those arrested have been charged under the UAPA and accused of being ‘Maoists’. None of them have been granted bail yet.

4. Major Leetul Gogoi

Video screen grab of Major Leetul Gogoi speaking to the media.

Major Leetul Gogoi earned the Indian Army international infamy in 2017 by taking a voter in Kashmir hostage and using him as a ‘human shield’. The major justified his criminal act by claiming he was trying to rescue election commission officials reportedly endangered by a “bloodthirsty” mob of 700-900. The hostage in question, Farooq Dar, was claimed to be an anti-election ‘stone pelter’, though it emerged that he had actually cast his vote.

Though the officer broke a slew of laws, military and civil, he was celebrated as a ‘national hero’ by supporters of the ruling party.

A court of inquiry was duly set up by the Army but the then Army chief, General Bipin Rawat (who has now been made India’s first chief of defence staff), scuttled it and instead awarded the controversial soldier a medal.

In less than a year though, Major Gogoi fell from the pedestal on which he had been placed. A second court of inquiry found him guilty of breaking “military discipline” for “fraternising” with a local woman and “being away from place of duty while in an operational area” and reduced six months seniority from his career book.

A former army officer, Lt. Gen (Retd) H.S. Panag, wrote, that Maj Gogoi had “violated Indian Army’s ethos, standard operating procedures, rules of engagement, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS)’s Commandments, the Supreme Court guidelines for application of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), Article 21 of the Constitution and Sections 63 and 69 of the Army Act read in conjunction with the Indian Penal Code. It is not too late for the Indian Army to reopen the ‘human shield’ case by holding a fresh court of inquiry and take necessary follow-up action depending upon the investigation.”

Also read: 14 Photos That Define the First Year of Modi 2.0

5. Aseemanand

On March 20, 2019, an NIA special court acquitted former RSS pracharak, Swami Aseemanand aka Naba Kumar Sarkar, along with three others, of all charges in the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case that had claimed the lives of 70 persons. The court said the investigating agency, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, failed to prove the conspiracy charge against them, and therefore, ruled that the accused deserve benefit of doubt.

Aseemanand was granted bail in the case in 2015, but continued to remain in jail as he was arrested in 2010 by the Central Bureau of Investigation from an ashram in Haridwar as an accused in the Ajmer Dargah blast case, and thereafter in the Mecca Masjid blast case.

While the Ajmer blast in 2007 took two lives, the Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad in the same year killed 16 people.

By the time the NIA court acquitted Aseemanand in the Samjhauta blast case, through 2017 and 2018, the NIA special courts in Jaipur and Hyderabad respectively had acquitted him also in the Ajmer Dargah and Mecca Masjid blast cases because of the Central agency’s inability to prove the charges.

In 2011, the NIA had charged Aseemanand of planning the Ajmer blast and subsequently in the other acts of terror.

Now, with no one charged in these blasts anymore, the families of 88 people killed in 2007 await justice.

Meanwhile, the BJP reportedly used Aseemanand’s release as “a key poll plank” in the Karnataka assembly elections.

6. Sadhvi Pragya Thakur

Pragya Thakur.

Madhya Pradesh resident Pragya Singh Thakur, or Sadhvi Pragya, was granted bail in 2015 in the Malegaon blast case after the NIA gave her a clean chit. While ten people were killed in the blast carried out in Malegaon town of Maharashtra in 2008, over 100 were injured.

The NIA clean chit came after the special public prosecutor, Rohini Salian, told the Indian Express that the agency under the Central government had put pressure on her to slow down the case. The court, however, rejected the NIA’s views on Thakur and placed terror charges on her under various sections of the UAPA.

In October 2018, the NIA had framed charges against her – ten years after the blast was carried out and nine years after she was arrested.

In 2017, the special NIA court dropped charges under the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against Pragya and the other accused. That year, the Bombay high court granted her bail on health grounds. She, however, will face terror charges under the UAPA.

In 2019, she joined the BJP, and is presently a Lok Sabha MP from Bhopal. Pragya was a member of the RSS’s youth wing, ABVP, during her college days.

In June 2019, her lawyer filed an application at the special NIA court in Mumbai for “exemption till further orders” but the court rejected it – forcing her to appear. It was the first time she appeared in court after the framing of charges in 2018.

7. Maya Kodnani

Maya Kodnani.

In 2018, Maya Surendra Kumar Kodnani, former minister of state in the Modi government in Gujarat, was acquitted of all charges in the Naroda Patiya case in 2002 by the Gujarat high court. She walked out of jail after nine years. Two years later, there is no sign of an appeal against that acquittal in the Supreme Court.

Daughter of an RSS pracharak, Kodnani was sentenced to 28 years in prison by a trial court in the case. In April 2013, the Gujarat government under Modi had moved an appeal in the high court seeking her death sentence but withdrew it three weeks later. As per news reports then, the Modi government consulted the advocate general of the state after right-wing groups slammed the chief minister (Modi) for endorsing the recommendation of the Supreme Court-appointed SIT seeking the death penalty for Kodnani and eight other accused including Babu Bajrangi.

Kodnani’s fate began to shine since then. In July 2014, she was granted bail by the high court on health grounds. On April 2018, the state high court overturned the trial court order and acquitted her in the case.

In the Naroda Patia massacre, 97 persons, including 36 children, were brutally killed.

8. D.G. Vanzara

D.G. Vanzara.

Former deputy inspector general of Gujarat Police D.G. Vanzara, accused in the extra-judicial killings of Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh, walked out of Sabarmati Jail on bail in February 2015 to a grand welcome after eight years of incarceration.

In December 2018, Vanzara and every other accused person were acquitted of the murders of Sohrabuddin and Kauser Bi. In May 2019, the controversial police officer was discharged from the Ishrat Jahan murder case  as well. Though this was a court decision, the role of the political executive in preparing the ground was quite evident.

Though Vanzara denied the encounters were fake, he dodged media questions on a letter he had written in 2013 accusing then state home minister Amit Shah of misguiding him.

As per rules, he was suspended from his job following his arrest by the state government. By the time he got out of jail, his service period had passed. He retired on May 31, 2014. However, after his release from jail, the BJP government in Gujarat gave him a promotion.

Meanwhile, another state police officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, who had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court against then chief minister Modi, claiming that he attended a meeting during which the chief minister allegedly asked top cops to let Hindus vent their anger at Muslims during the Gujarat riots (the SC-appointed SIT, however, said he didn’t attend the meeting), is in jail in a 1990 custodial death case, along with six other policemen. In June 2019, Bhatt was sentenced to life imprisonment in the case by a Jamnagar sessions court.

Also read: Safoora Zargar Case Lays Bare How Superficial India’s Respect for Motherhood Is

Cases that could have been

1. Suresh Tiwari and Brijbhushan Rajput

These two BJP MLAs from Uttar Pradesh made headlines in the middle of the national lockdown against COVID-19 for making communal statements against Muslims. Tiwari, an MLA from the state’s Barhaj constituency, was seen in a widely circulated video clip asking the public not to buy vegetables from Muslim vendors as he alleged that they were a ‘source’ of the virus. Brijbhushan Rajput, MLA was seen in a video intimidating a Muslim vendor.

BJP national president J.P. Nadda issued a show cause notice and said that the conduct of the MLAs was against the party’s policy. However, the state police didn’t take cognisance of their inflammatory statements.

Instead, Congress state chief and former MLA Ajay Kumar Laalu was arrested on May 20 in Agra for protesting against the administration’s refusal to allow the buses his party had organised to transport migrants to the state. They were reportedly arrested for unlawful assembly, some of them not wearing masks or maintaining proper distance. Laalu got bail but was soon arrested in another case.

It must be mentioned that suspended doctor from a state hospital, Kafeel Khan, has been prosecuted and jailed under the National Security Act for his remark at an anti-CAA protest in Aligarh Muslim University in December last year. He had reportedly said, “Tum hame nahi hata paoge, hum 25 crore hai (You will not be able to throw us out, we (Indian Muslims) are 25 crore).

2. Sri Rama Vidya Kendra, Mangalore

Last December, this RSS-run school at Kalladka in Mangalore celebrated its sports day by enacting L.K. Advani’s rath yatra, the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 and the proposed construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in the presence of Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi and Union minister D.V. Sadananada Gowda. Bedi posted a video of the event on social media too.

Though the communally charged play attracted criticism,  Kalladkha Prabhakar Bhat, the school owner and RSS’s south-central region executive committee member, told The News Minute, “Even though the Supreme Court has said that what happened in Babri was wrong, we have questioned that part of the judgement itself. We cannot accept everything that is said in the judgement. I don’t agree with it.”

A month later, yet another school, in Karnataka’s Bidar, staged a play, with the theme of opposing the CAA. As the news spread, Bidar police took cognisance of it and slapped a case of sedition and promotion of enmity against the school, its headmistress, a teacher and a student’s mother. The mother was arrested because her minor daughter allegedly uttered an anti-Modi slur in her dialogue during the play held on January 21. The school is run by Shaheen Group.

Police interrogated several children in the first week of February. The teacher and the mother were finally granted bail on February 14 – after 15 days of their arrest.

3. Anurag Thakur, Parevsh Verma and Kapil Misra

Media reports showed Union minister Anurag Thakur and Delhi BJP leaders Parvesh Verma and Kapil Misra delivering communal and provocative speeches just before the Delhi riots. Though the Delhi high court asked the Delhi Police to take a quick decision on filing FIRs against them, the judge, Justice S. Muralidhar, soon found himself shifted out the state, and the case was listed before high court Chief Justice D.N. Patel in a highly unusual manner.

On being asked about the video clips, deputy commissioner of police (crime branch) Rajesh Deo had told Justice Muralidhar that he had not watched them. This prompted the judge to say that he was “really amazed at the state of affairs of the Delhi Police”, adding that the commissioner’s office must have several TVs. Police personnel were present at the spot when Mishra delivered his speech.

While the chargesheet filed by the police in the Delhi riots case has omitted Mishra’s speech in the “chronology of events” part, the words uttered have, nevertheless, hit the headlines this week for being the benchmark of hate speech for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said his company would not allow them to remain on the social media website.

Gujarat Fake Encounter Cases Accused D.G. Vanzara Gets Post-Retirement Promotion

The former IPS officer was suspended by the state government in May 2007 after his arrest in connection with the alleged fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.

Ahmedabad: Former IPS officer D.G. Vanzara, who was accused in the alleged fake encounters of Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh and was later discharged in both the cases, has been given post-retirement promotion as the Inspector General of Police (IGP) by the Gujarat government, six years after he retired from service.

As per the notification issued by the state Home Department, a copy of which Vanzara tweeted on Tuesday night, he has been promoted as the IGP with effect from September 29, 2007.

Additional secretary to the state home department, Nikhil Bhatt, on Wednesday confirmed that his department has issued a notification about Vanzara’s promotion.

Vanzara, a 1987-batch IPS officer, had retired as the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) on May 31, 2014.

Also read: Gujarat Govt Denied Sanction to Prosecute Ex Cops in Ishrat Jahan Fake Encounter Case

He was suspended by the state government in May 2007 after his arrest in connection with the alleged fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Later, he was also made an accused in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case.

The former IPS officer was subsequently discharged in both the cases by special CBI courts, first in August 2017 in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case, and then in May last year in the Ishrat Jahan case.

“Consequent to clean chit received from Judiciary in all Encounter Cases vch (which) were concocted by Anti- National Forces agnst (against) me & Gujarat Police, I am given Post-Retirement Promotion of Inspector General of Police wef 29-09-2007. I am thankful to both Govt of India & Govt of Gujarat,” Vanzara tweeted along with a copy of the government notification.

Vanzara was heading the Gujarat ATS when the alleged fake encounters took place. After his arrest in March 2007 by the state CID, Vanzara remained in jail for around seven years.

The Sohrabuddin case was transferred to Mumbai in September 2012. He was serving as Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) of Border Range at the time of his arrest.

Also read: Ishrat Jahan Case: Former Cops Vanzara, Amin Discharged

Vanzara, who had joined the police service as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) in 1980, was promoted as an IPS officer in 1987.

He served as Deputy Commissioner of Police of Ahmedabad Crime Branch and was later promoted as DIG. He also worked as DIG of Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in Ahmedabad.

Sheikh was killed in an alleged fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005, after which his wife disappeared. According to the CBI, she, too, was killed.

The central agency had claimed that Tulsiram Prajapati, Sheikh’s aide and an eyewitness to the alleged encounter, was later killed by the police at Chapri village in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district in December 2006.

Ishrat, a 19-year-old woman from Mumbra near Mumbai, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Akbarali Rana, and Zeeshan Johar were killed by Gujarat police in an alleged fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

The police had claimed that they had links with terrorists.

Haren Pandya Case Should be Reinvestigated Says Policeman Who First Probed Killing

The more a reinvestigation is delayed, the greater is the likelihood of the trail going completely cold.

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat police officer who supervised the initial investigation into the mysterious murder of BJP leader Haren Pandya before the CBI came in and “botched up” the case now believes the killing should be investigated afresh so that the actual culprits can be identified and punished.

Of all the unexplained killings and encounters that happened in Gujarat during Narendra Modi’s 13-year tenure as chief minister, the murder of Pandya was in many ways the most intriguing. A popular leader of the ruling party and a former home minister of the state, Pandya had been sidelined by Modi and was known to have testified before an independent tribunal probing the state government’s complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots.

On the morning of March 26, 2003, his lifeless body was found in his car just outside the city’s Law Garden. Though his car was parked near a crowded intersection, no one even heard the gunshots fired apart from a sole witness that the Gujarat high court would later describe as unreliable.

Former DSP of the Gujarat police, Y.A. Shaikh.

The CBI prosecuted 12 Muslims for the crime and secured their convictions at a special anti-terrorism court. The agency claimed their motive for killing Pandya was to take revenge for the riots. But so improbable was the CBI’s case that the Gujarat high court in 2011 not only acquitted all the accused but felt compelled to assail the shoddy quality of the investigation.

Speaking to The Wire at his residence in Ahmedabad, Y.A. Shaikh drew attention to the fact that the Gujarat high court had actually suggested action be taken against the investigating officers.

“What clearly stands out from the record of the present case,” the high court had noted, “is that the investigation in the case of murder of Shri Haren Pandya has all throughout been botched up and blinkered and has left a lot to be desired. The investigating officers concerned ought to be held accountable for their ineptitude resulting into injustice, huge harassment of many persons concerned and enormous waste of public resources and public time of the courts.”

The CBI’s chief investigator was Y.C. Modi. In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed him head of the National Investigation Agency.

Also read: New Evidence, Old Lies on the Murder of Haren Pandya, Modi’s Early Rival

Conceding that the basic facts of the case – from the position of Pandya’s body to the nature of his bullet wounds and the absence of blood in the car – were difficult to square with the CBI’s claims, Y.A. Shaikh  said it would have been logical for the agency to have gone back to the drawing board and reinvestigated the murder.

Instead of  heeding the high court’s strictures, however, the CBI decided in November 2011 to appeal its verdict.

The matter is due to be heard by the apex court later this month but the sensational revelation made by a witness in a seemingly unrelated case last November is likely to cast its shadow on the arguments and counter-arguments that will be made.

Allegation of contract killing against Vanzara

On November 3, 2018, Azam Khan, a prosecution witness in the Sohrabuddin-Kausarbi-Prajapati killings case, testified that Sohrabuddin told him senior Gujarat police officer D.G. Vanzara had put out a contract to kill Pandya.

In his deposition, Khan said, “During discussion with Sohrabuddin, he told me that he, along with Naeem Khan and Shahid Rampuri, got the contract to kill … Haren Pandya of Gujarat and they killed him. I felt sad and I told Sohrabuddin that they have killed a good person. Thereafter, Sohrabuddin told me that this contract of killing was given to him by Vanzara.”

Although Khan said in open court that the order to kill Pandya had come from ‘people on top’ – “upar se yeh kaam diya tha” (the work was given from above) – judge S.J. Sharma expunged those words from the official court transcript of the deposition.

Khan said that subsequently, Sohrabuddin engaged Prajapati and “another boy” to commit the murder. “I told before the CBI officer about my discussion with Sohrabuddin at his house in Udaipur and the killing of Shri Hariyan Pandya by Tulsiram and one boy at the instance of Sohrabuddin…,” he said under cross-examination, the court transcript records.

Was Tulsiram Prajapati the shooter?

Khan’s statement that Vanzara, Sohrabuddin and Prajapati were involved in Pandya’s killing and that Prajapati was the gunman has opened up a can of worms. Not only has it rekindled speculation about a political conspiracy behind Pandya’s murder but has also put on the table a new motive for the killing of Sohrabuddin and Prajapati by Vanzara and the Gujarat police – the fear that the duo might not be willing to keep quiet about the killing of Pandya.

A hitherto unnoticed detail about the Pandya case is also relevant here. The crime branch had prepared a sketch of the alleged shooter on the basis of a description provided by a man the CBI claimed at the trial was the sole eyewitness to Pandya’s killing, a vendor named Anil Yaadram.

The sketch proved to be of no use in the trial court with the judge, Sonia Gokani, herself noting that it bore no resemblance to the man the CBI said was the gunman, Asgar Ali. Curiously, however, the sketch does bear a striking resemblance to Tulsiram Prajapati, whom Azam Khan says was Pandya’s assassin.

Left: Police sketch of Haren Pandya’s assassin, based on inputs from the sole eyewitness. Right: Tulsiram Prajapati, identified by Azam Khan as the shooter. Prajapati was killed by the Gujarat police in an ‘encounter’ in 2006. Source: Court records

When The Wire shared the two images above with Shaikh, the original investigating officer, he accepted that there was a resemblance but had no explanation for how this could be. He said that the police artist, A.A. Chauhan, had prepared the sketch based on the witness’s inputs and that he became aware of the existence of a sketch only at the time of the trial.

What makes the resemblance especially bizarre is that Tulsiram is said to have been in a Madhya Pradesh jail on the day of Pandya’s killing.

Shaikh, who was sent to scene of the crime by the police control room on the morning of the shooting, handled the investigation for only two days. He recorded the statements of those who first saw Pandya’s body, and took charge of his mobile phone. He heard that a vendor might have been an eyewitness to the shooting and made contact with him.

Also read: Did the CBI Even Investigate Ex-Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya’s Murder?

The vendor Yaadram’s conduct even before he made it to the witness stand was curious. By his own account, he witnessed the shooting at 7:30 in the morning. Though the shooter fled, Yaadram did not apparently bother to see if his victim was dead or alive, nor did he call the police. Instead, he left the scene and purportedly told his employer later that someone had been shot. It is only when Pandya’s staff arrived at the scene that someone placed a call to the police control room. The time was around 10:30-10:40 and even then the PCR did not know exactly what had happened and to whom. The message which Shaikh received from the control room simply was that “there is some disturbance, please find out is going on”.

Two days later, the CBI was brought in and Shaikh was off the case. Within two weeks, the CBI declared that it had cracked the case. It charged a young man, Asghar, with the murder and roped a few others into the conspiracy, alleging that all of them had been motivated to commit the crime at the behest of a local cleric, Mufti Sufiyan. The cleric fled the state, reportedly to Pakistan, just when the CBI was unravelling the case and has remained untraceable since. His family, too, disappeared, several weeks later despite being under police surveillance.

Unanswered questions

The serendipitous emergence of Tulsiram Prajapati’s likeness in the Pandya case files is only one of the many mysteries surrounding the assassination.

After reviewing the trial court’s verdict and the arguments of the defence counsel, the high court reached the conclusion that key questions about the killing still remain unanswered. The time of the shooting remains a mystery, as does the awkward position in which Pandya’s body was found inside his car, a Maruti 800, with his feet, according to media reports, almost touching the steering wheel. The CBI’s explanation for the number of bullets found and the nature of the wounds they caused was seen as utterly implausible. The ballistics did not match the gun produced in court and the fact that another gun had been recovered from Udaipur – where Sohrabuddin had been staying – was never brought to the court’s notice.

Then there was the complete absence of blood in the car except for one drop despite the fact that one bullet entered Pandya’s scrotum and travelled upward. The trajectory of that bullet also appears to have defied all laws of physics since the eyewitness produced by the CBI said the gunman had fired on the car from the outside, through the opening of its door window that was just 3 inches wide.

This is what the high court observed:

“The opening of glass having been scientifically measured to be hardly 3 inches and [the eyewitness]  having confirmed that Mr. Pandya was fired upon from outside the car, the version of the sole eye witness was practically improbablised by medical evidence and FSL reports which clearly indicated that at least [the scrotum] injury … was impossible to be caused from the height and angle of the weapon attributed to the assailant while the victim would be seated in the driver’s seat or even while he was sliding onto the adjoining seat, within seconds of the first fatal shot.”

On the mysterious absence of blood in the car, the high court noted:

The mystery of the murder is deepened by the facts, borne out from the record, that no blood was found in Shri Pandya’s car except a negligible spot on the seat near the driver’s seat even as his clothes bore tell-tale signs of profuse bleeding from injuries on the neck and forearm; and mobile phone and keys lying on the floor of the car below that seat had stains of blood.

Based on the bullets recovered, there is every likelihood that there were two weapons and two assassins. The absence of blood in the car when Pandya had clearly bled profusely suggests he was killed not in his car but elsewhere and that his body was then stuffed into his car. Why this was done, and by whom, can only be answered by a proper investigation – of the kind the CBI never did.

In an angry letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2013 about the Sohrabuddin and Ishrat Jahan fake encounter cases, BJP leader Arun Jaitley had also complained about attempts to “politicise the [Pandya] case”. He said “suggestions … are being made in the corridors of power by senior Congress leaders to implicate BJP leaders at this belated stage…. the CBI is being pressurised to admit that its own investigation was faulty.”

Far from “politicising” the Pandya case, it was the Congress-led UPA government that moved the Supreme Court in appeal against the high court’s decision to acquit the accused. And it was the Gujarat high court judgment acquitting the 12 men accused of Pandya’s murder which made no bones about the fact that the CBI’s investigation was not just faulty but “blinkered” and “inept”.

Simply put, the high court found that Pandya could not have been killed in the way the CBI said he was. It also found that the investigation left out innumberable clues and leads and expressed surprise at the CBI’s refusal to allow Pandya’s staff to testify about the state they found his body in.

In the 15 years since the crime, Pandya’s father and his widow, various BJP leaders in Gujarat and now the original investigating officer, have all questioned the sheer improbability of the CBI’s investigation. The more a reinvestigation is delayed, the greater is the likelihood of the trail going completely cold. Perhaps that is what the CBI, which clearly knows more than it is revealing, is hoping will happen.

Note: In an earlier version of this story it was stated that the CBI appealed the high court verdict on Pandya in 2013. In fact, the agency moved the Supreme Court in November 2011.

Amit Shah Was Not on Trial But Sohrabuddin Judge Gives Him Clean Chit Nonetheless

Judge S.J. Sharma attacks CBI for trying to implicate “political leaders” in the ‘reported killing’ of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati and the disappearance of Kausar Bi.

Mumbai: One week after he acquitted all 22 persons accused of murdering Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and associate Tulsiram Prajapati in a series of fake encounters in 2005 and 2006, the CBI special judge has yet to make public his written judgment. But he has, unusually, devoted a passage in his conclusion to the exoneration of someone who was not even on trial before his court: BJP president Amit Shah.

Special Judge S.J. Sharma has accused the Central Bureau of Investigation – the agency which prosecuted the case under the supervision of the Supreme Court – of using a “premeditated theory” and “a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders” in the three murders. He made these observations while categorically giving a clean chit to BJP president Amit Shah – who was not on trial before the court.

“My predecessor has, while passing an order of discharge in the application of accused number 16 [Amit Shah] clearly recorded that the investigation was politically motivated. Having given my dispassionate consideration to the entire material placed before me and having examined each of the witnesses and the evidence closely, I have no hesitation in recording that the premier investigating agency like CBI had before it a premeditated theory and a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders. And the agency thereafter merely did what was required to reach that goal, rather than conducting an investigation in accordance with law.”

Shah, who was earlier named as an accused in the case, was discharged from the case in December 2014 by judge M.B. Gosavi well before the trial commenced. Gosavi took over the case after the sudden death of judge B.H. Loya that month.

Shah’s discharge was followed by the eventual discharge of all the senior policemen accused of the three murders. By the time the actual trial started, only 22 of the original accused remained – mostly low-rung policemen – and on December 21 Judge Sharma acquitted them all of the charges of murder, conspiracy, and destruction of evidence.

The CBI, he said, “did what was required of it to reach the goal rather than conduct an investigation in accordance with law.”

Though Sharma in his judgment has accused the CBI of trying to frame Shah, he actively discouraged witnesses as well as prosecution lawyers in court from bringing on record any specific evidence against Shah or the 15 other persons discharged as they were not facing trial anymore.

In his judgment, Sharma observes: “I have examined the entire evidence placed before me. Having so examined the entire investigation and having conducted the trial, I have no hesitation in recording that during the investigation of these offences, the CBI was doing something other than reaching the truth of these offences. It clearly appears that the CBI was more concerned in establishing a particular preconceived and premeditated theory rather than finding out the truth.”

The court, however, has refrained from passing any strictures or giving specific directions against the “erring” CBI officers who investigated the case.

Asked for a response, the CBI spokesperson refused to comment to on the court’s observation saying, “We have not received the judgment copy so far. We are not in a position to give any comments at present.”

No clarity on three encounters

Sohrabuddin, a small-time gangster, was killed by the Gujarat police on November 26, 2005. The official claim at the time was that he had been sent by the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba to assassinate a top political leader in the state, presumably Narendra Modi, who was chief minister.

In 2007, the Gujarat government itself admitted the encounter was fake and filed a chargesheet against 13 policemen. The Supreme Court subsequently handed over the investigation to the CBI, which filed its chargesheet in 2012. The agency established that Sohrabuddin’s wife, Kausar Bi, who had been abducted along with her husband from a Hyderabad-to-Sangli bus and kept in illegal custody, was murdered on November 28, 2005. Prajapati, who was aware of these killings, was killed in custody on December 28, 2006, the CBI charged, with the killing shown as a failed escape attempt.

While the CBI claimed that the three persons had been murdered as a part of one large “inter-state political- police-criminal nexus”, the CBI special court has concluded that Prajapati was killed in a “genuine encounter”.

The court said that he had in fact not traveled with Shaikh on the bus from Hyderabad in Telangana to Maharashtra’s Sangli district as the CBI had argued.

“If Prajapati had traveled along with Shaikh,” the court said, “the accused would not have waited for a year to eliminate him but would have killed him along with Shaikh.”

In an interview to The Wire, Prajapati’s mother, Narmadabai, had disclosed how her son had told her on three occasions that he feared the police were going to eliminate him.

Contesting the CBI’s allegations, the policemen charged with the custodial killing of Prajapati maintained that they had fired at him in self- defence when he tried to escape while they were escorting him from  Udaipur central prison to Ahmedabad. One policeman was allegedly injured in the firing. While the CBI had claimed it was a self- inflicted wound, the accused policemen had used the wound to challenge the CBI’s versi0n.

The court also stated that the CBI had failed to provide adequate evidence to prove the “circumstances under which Shaikh was killed”. In other words, his murder, 13 years later, continues to be a mystery, just as the disappearance of his wife, Kausar Bi.

According to the court’s observation, “the CBI could not bring evidence to prove that Kausar Bi had traveled with Shaikh on the bus from Hyderabad to Sangli and that she was subsequently abducted and kept in a guest house along with Shaikh and then later shifted to another guest house (Arham guest house) before she was killed and her body was burnt.”

Judge Sharma said that nothing about her whereabouts and her supposed abduction or of her murder could be proved on the basis of the evidence that CBI had gathered in the case.

‘CBI coerced, pressurised the witnesses’

The trial, that went on for a little over one year, saw 210 witnesses – eyewitnesses, police and experts – depose before the trial court. Of these, 92 witnesses, including several crucial ones, turned hostile. Among others who were not declared hostile, many did not stick to their earlier statements entirely.

While past experience suggests witnesses turning hostile is the product of coercion and intimidation brought to bear on them during trial, judge Sharma accused the CBI of coercing witnesses to make false claims in their earlier statements:

“The witnesses whose statements were purportedly recorded deposed fearlessly before the court clearly indicating that their purported statements were wrongly recorded by the CBI during the investigation to justify its script to implicate political leaders.”

Sharma further added,

“In my discussion, I have also noted the negligence of the CBI towards the material part of the investigation which clearly indicates that they hurriedly completed the investigation either by using replica of the earlier recorded investigation and have implicated the police personnel who had not at all knowledge of any conspiracy rather they appeared innocent.”

The entire investigation, according to the court, was “targeted to act upon a script to achieve the said goal [of implicating politicians] and anyhow the CBI created the evidence and placed statements purported to have been recorded under section 161 and or section 164 of the CrPC.”

Though statements recorded under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code are taken on oath before a local district magistrate and are considered strong, admissible evidence at the time of the trial, the judge has concluded that most witnesses were coerced and pressurised into giving “purported statements” before the magistrate by the CBI and that they finally spoke the truth before the special CBI court at the time of the trial.  “Some witnesses (including one CBI official) even cried before the court explaining how they were intimidated into giving favourable statements to the CBI,” the court has observed in its judgment, excerpts of which were read out to reporters by the judge.

Since the court has considered the hostile witnesses as a victim of the political vendetta furthered by the CBI, no legal proceedings have been initiated against them.

‘Agony’ and ‘regret’ at ‘reported killing’ going unpunished

As a concluding paragraph, judge Sharma stated that he was “not unaware of the degree of agony and frustration that may be caused to the society in general and (to) the families of the deceased in particular, by the fact, a serious crime like this goes unpunished. But then the law doesn’t permit the court to punish the accused on the basis of moral conviction or suspicion alone. The burden of truth in a criminal trial never shifts, and it is always the burden of the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubts on the basis of acceptable evidence.”

Expressing “regret”, the judge observed: “It is no doubt a matter of regret that there is a reported killing of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram and it is going unpunished. So, also Kausar Bi, wife of Sohrabuddin’s disappearance and the script of the CBI during the investigation that she was killed and set ablaze is lacking evidence and is also going unpunished. However, just for the sake of the record, the accused cannot be punished by holding them guilty on moral or suspicious grounds. I have, therefore, no options (but) to conclude that the accused are not guilty and are to be acquitted.”

We Must Never Compromise Our Fight for Justice: Open Letter to Haren Pandya’s Widow

For years, Jagruti Pandya refused to accept the official account of her husband’s murder and suspected the involvement of BJP leaders. But in 2016, she joined the party and is now head of the state child rights commission.

Prashant Dayal, a senior journalist in Gujarat, wrote this open letter to Jagruti Pandya the day after the Azam Khan testified before a Mumbai court that Sohrabuddin had told him the order to kill her husband – the former Gujarat home minister and BJP leader Haren Pandya – was given by a senior police officer in the state, D.G. Vanzara.

Dayal’s open letter, written in Gujarati, has circulated widely and is being published in English to underline the fact that Pandya’s friends and family had consistently questioned the Central Bureau of Investigation’s account of the March 26, 2003 murder and sought an impartial re-investigation to identify the real killers.

§

Jagrutibehn,

Many of Haren’s friends like me would usually address you as ‘bhabhi’, but I’m addressing you as ‘behn’ in this letter. We used to have cursory conversations when I would come to your place to see Haren before 2003. We friends can never forget the morning of March 26, 2003. We were stunned. When we first heard Haren was shot at, the first reaction was to pray to God to save him. But God becomes cruel at times. Our prayers were to no avail.

Though Haren was our friend, I fully understand he was you husband and the father of your two children. The kids were young at that time. I could realise your agony and couldn’t muster the courage to console you. I couldn’t even call you. What could I tell you when you had lost everything?

The shock was unbearable for Haren’s father, Vitthalbhai, too. One can understand how painful it must be for a father to give shoulder to his son’s dead body. Vitthalbhai shouted openly that Narendra Modi got Haren killed. But I was not ready to believe it. Both Modi and Haren became adversaries from the day when Haren refused to vacate the Ellisbridge seat for Modi. That created the obvious impression that Modi was responsible for Haren’s murder. Vitthalbhai fought till his last to bring justice to his murdered son. You were silent at that time, because you were worried about the security of your children. Your decision was right. You were not silent because you didn’t want to do anything to bring the murderers of Haren to justice. Only the circumstances were not suitable.

You came out once the children grew up. You were wise and knew that squarely blaming anyone would yield nothing. I have been witness to your efforts. You went from one lawyer’s office to another’s with the file of the Haren murder case. We met and discussed how we can move further in the case. Both of us believed Asghar Ali, the person arrested by police and CBI, was merely a mask. We wondered whether  Amit Shah might be behind Haren’s murder. But those were merely doubts on our part. We didn’t have proof at that time and haven’t got any even now. If Asghar killed Haren, who prompted him to do so? It was important to find out. Your efforts and courage must be praised as you went all the way to meet the alleged murderer of your husband in jail.

File photo of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Narendra Modi and D.G. Vanzara.

You requested Asghar a lot, even showed willingness to fight his case, but he didn’t utter a word to you. Our doubts became stronger when the Gujarat high court acquitted all the accused, including Asghar, in Haren’s murder case. If Asghar didn’t kill Haren, who killed him? You tried enough with CBI. It was the UPA regime. Congress leader Ahmed Patel called the shots. You met him several times and tried to persuade him so that the CBI reinvestigates the case. But the Congress proved worthless. The Congress was only interested in using Haren’s name to hurl abuse at Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Congress leaders didn’t help you.

I was friends with Haren from the time when he was a corporator (at the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.) Pradipsinh Jadeja, Haren, Bima Shah and I used to meet daily. I am a journalist. I wrote against the BJP and Haren many times. Haren understood my work. He became upset with me sometimes but convinced himself eventually. Journalists like me have their fair share of bad times. Haren was always with me in my down period. We used to call each other by first name. I stood with you after Haren’s murder because I was duty-bound as a friend. We were trying to secure justice for Haren. We were not out to take revenge against Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. We only wanted Haren’s murderer to be arrested and sentenced. Everyone knew who gained from Haren’s murder. But we had no proof. We were tired and ultimately lost.

We still regret not finding Haren’s murderer. But it was a shocker for us friends when you decided to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. The very leaders who you think were responsible for the murder of your husband, those BJP leaders who kept away from you after Haren’s murder, those BJP leaders who were close friends of Haren but left you after his murder. Because to be with you during those days meant to antagonise Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

Times changed. Narendra Modi became Prime Minister and Amit Shah the BJP president. Usually you would discuss many small things with me. But you didn’t tell me about your decision to join the BJP.  I was shocked to hear that news one morning. You joined the BJP in 2016 and became chairperson of the child rights commission. I was completely lost. It was not about your joining  theBJP. But (I remember) how the national leaders of the BJP had tried to prevent you from meeting them during their Ahmedabad visits, many times with the help of the police. We had no proof but we believed Haren had been killed by some BJP leader. I asked myself about the step you had taken. You didn’t have a problem of survival. It was not the case that you had to join BJP in order to keep your kitchen fire burning. Then why did you do it? In such circumstances, I also thought that perhaps you created pressure on the BJP leadership in the name of Haren’s murder in order to get a position. But I shed that idea, telling myself you can’t do that.

Perhaps you were also feeling the guilt of joining the BJP and becoming chairman of a state commission. May be that was the reason you stopped talking to me. You might also think how would you respond to me when I ask you about your step. It’s not necessary for you to answer me but decency required it. You started going to government office in a government car and forgot about who had Haren killed. But I couldn’t forget. I was helpless against the system. I felt enraged by my helplessness many times. Last Saturday, when Azam Khan told the Mumbai court that Haren was killed on the orders of ex-policeman, D. G. Vanzara, I immediately thought of you.

If we assume Azam Khan speaks the truth, there was no bad blood between Vanzara and Haren. In this case, it is important to find out why Vanzara would want to get Haren killed. Our suspicions, and whatever details that are available, point towards Amit Shah having the answers. In such circumstances, how can you be with them? We might die fighting – just like Vitthalbhai – but how can you sit with those whom we suspected to be responsible for Haren’s murder? I don’t know if it’s compulsion for you or just greed for power. I know you will feel bad about this letter but give a thought to it. It is never too late. All of us err. It’s just that we should be ready to correct ourselves.

When we shall meet Haren wherever he is, I want to say to him that my friend, we fought for you. They wore us out and we and lost, but we never compromised. Let’s try to do this.

Prashant Dayal

(Translated from the Gujarati original by Urvish Kothari and published with the author’s permission)

Opposition Turns the Heat on Modi, Shah After Revelations About ‘Hitman’ Vanzara

As the matter is still pending at the Supreme Court, the connection key prosecution witness Azam Khan made between Haren Pandya’s murder and Vanzara directly puts the then BJP state government in the dock.

New Delhi: Opposition parties on Monday demanded a fresh inquiry into former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya’s murder in light of recent testimony of a key prosecution witness in the controversial Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

Azam Khan, on November 3, testified at a Mumbai trial court that Sohrabuddin had told him that that the former Gujarat IPS officer D.G. Vanzara had ordered the killing of Pandya. He also said that CBI official N.S. Raju had refused to put his statement on record in 2010, when he first narrated his testimony.

Vanzara was incidentally acquitted in the fake encounter case in 2017. However, the Gujarat high court, while pronouncing the verdict had been particularly scathing in its indictment of the CBI officials who conducted the probe. The court had called the investigations led by a team of Y.C. Modi, the current director of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), as “botched up and blinkered”.

As the matter is still pending at the Supreme Court, the connection Khan made between Pandya’s murder and Vanzara directly puts the then BJP state government in the dock. It is well-known that Vanzara, during his tenure, has been one of the most preferred police officers by the then chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, and his minister, Amit Shah.

Also read: Mystery over Haren Pandya Killing Deepens After Witness Says Top Gujarat Cop Gave Order

Pointing out Khan’s testimony, Congress leader Tom Vadakkan said that the investigation in Pandya murder case remains inconclusive even now and that the “guilty is still at large”.  

He alleged that since Khan’s testimony indicates that the Pandya was killed by Sohrabuddin and his associates at the instance of Modi-Shah duo’s favourite police official, the matter has become too serious to ignore as further investigation can put higher-ups in the then government under the scanner.  

Commenting on Sohrabuddin’s alleged fake encounter, Vadakkan said, “The question is: who ordered these murders? And why? A fake encounter for no rhyme or reason and all sorts of theories were put out, planted in the newspapers. Everywhere the reports said that ‘Sohrabuddin Sheikh was guilty’, in the sense that he had links with terrorists, links with international agencies and what have you. But the reality is, he knew too much.”

Vadakkan also questioned the CBI for not conducting a fresh probe despite the high court’s severely critical comments. The CBI, instead, went on to appeal at the Supreme Court against the high court’s judgement.

“It’s not just a coincidence, anybody who had any evidence to establish was liquidated and such operations went on,” the Congress leader said, adding that the fresh evidence should now be “treated with due respect” by the SC. He demanded that the apex court should now order a probe under its monitoring as multiple attempts to bury the evidence in the case have already been done.   

Also read: The Many Questions Still Unanswered 15 Years After Haren Pandya’s Killing

We also request to the home minister to give protection to these witnesses who have made these statement, because we should not find them too in the obituary column suddenly,” Vadakkan said, adding that even in the Judge B.H. Loya’s case, there have been similar attempts to bury evidence.  

Other Congress leaders like Sanjay Nirupam, Dinesh Gundu Rao, and Arjun Modhwadia also took turns to turn the heat on the Modi government.

Similarly, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury also asked who are these higher-ups who Khan mentions in his testimony.

Swaraj Abhiyan leader and eminent lawyer Prashant Bhushan also tweeted to say, “This is huge!. Witness is Sohrabuddin fake encounter case tells court that Sohrabuddin was the given the contract to kill Modi’s minister Haren Pandya (who deposed against Modi on Gujarat carnage) by Shah’s hitman Vanzara! This confirms widespread public suspicion.”

Gujarat’s MLA and emerging youth leader Jignesh Mevani too took this opportunity to launch an attack on the Modi-Shah duo.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal parliamentarian Manoj Kumar Jha tweeted a link of Vanzara’s letter in which he as an undertrial prisoner in the Sohrabuddin encounter case had said that the killings the police undertook during the phase had the blessings of the then BJP-led state government. He had said regarding the alleged fake encounters that as field officers, they were only implementing “the conscious policy of this government which was inspiring, guiding and monitoring our actions from very close quarters”.

Jha said, “…just in case we have chosen to forget… (the letter) is telling us the chilling side of ‘Gujarat Model of Development’…”

Sanjay Singh of Aam Aadmi Party said although Khan’s deposition in court clarifies that Vanzara was behind the then state home minister’s killing, the bigger question to ask is who were those who ordered Vanzara to kill Pandya.

Mystery over Haren Pandya Killing Deepens After Witness Says Top Gujarat Cop Gave Order

Pandya, a rival and critic of Narendra Modi, was shot dead in 2003. While acquitting the 12 arraigned, high court indicted CBI probe as ‘botched and blinkered’ and sought action against investigators. No fresh leads pursued though family and even BJP leaders sought reinvestigation.

New Delhi: Testimony by a key prosecution witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case has reignited public and political interest in the unsolved 2003 murder of Haren Pandya, the senior Gujarat BJP leader who was a critic of Narendra Modi in the early months of his chief ministership and whose testimony about the state government’s  complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim violence had deeply embarrassed the Bharatiya Janata Party at the time.

Pandya’s body was found riddled with bullets outside a popular park in Ahmedabad on March 26, 2003 but 15 years later – with the men accused of the killing by the Central Bureau of Investigation all acquitted – the identity of his killers is still unknown. In the high court, the CBI case was found plainly impossible, besides failing to account for the number of bullets, the number of firearms and assassins and even the place of murder.

On Saturday, Azam Khan, a prosecution witness in the case against several policemen for the murder of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kauser Bi and associate Tulsiram Prajapati, testified before a Mumbai court that Sohrabuddin had told him the former Gujarat IPS officer D.G. Vanzara had ordered the killing of Pandya. Notably, Azam Khan is not the first to link Sohrabuddin, and through him Vanzara and another top Gujarat police officer, Chudasama, with the Pandya murder.

Vanzara, who was one of the prime accused in the fake encounter case, was discharged by the trial court on August 1, 2017. At the moment, 22 accused, including Rajasthan and Gujarat policemen, are facing trial for the killing of the three.

Vanzara himself was reported to have told the CBI about a political conspiracy to assassinate Pandya.  Pandya’s security cover was inexplicably withdrawn just days before the killing. The Law Garden lane in which his body was found was also cleared of all carts and hawkers two days before he was found dead there.

Even as the CBI’s commitment to prosecuting the Sohrabuddin case has been widely questioned – the agency has refused to appeal the discharge of BJP president Amit Shah and others who it had chargesheeted for the crime – Khan’s testimony has led to calls from the opposition for the Pandya case to be reinvestigated.

Pandya’s father, sister and wife had continuously maintained that the killers are at large, as did some BJP leaders  like Gordhan Zadaphiya, Suresh Patel and Janak Parmar – the complainant in the Pandya murder case. However, the CBI has refused so far to consider that it has been pursuing a wrong line of investigation.

‘Sohrabuddin told me order for killing Pandya came from above’

In his submission, Azam Khan told the court that Sohrabuddin had said the order for the execution had come from those holding high position – “upar se yeh kaam diya tha” (the work was given from above).

An associate of Sohraduddin and Prajapati, Khan submitted that “during discussion with Sohrabuddin, he told me that he, along with Naeem Khan and Shahid Rampuri, got the contract to kill … Haren Pandya of Gujarat and they killed him. I felt sad and I told Sohrabuddin that they have killed a good person. Sohrabuddin told me that the contract was given to him by Vanzara.”

CBI officer ignored Khan’s disclosure about Pandya killing

Khan also disclosed that way back in 2010, he had said the same thing to a CBI investigator, N.S. Raju, but he was told not to create “new confusion”

“I had told the CBI officer that Haren Pandya’s murder was done by Tulsiram Prajapati and one boy at the instance of Sohrabuddin. When I told him (Raju) about Haren Pandya, ‘unhone bola naye bakhede mey mat dalo (don’t involve me in new confusion),” Khan told the court, the Indian Express reported.

On why he had felt bad about the former minister’s killing, Khan explained that after the 2002 violence, Pandya had worked towards bring the bringing communities together. “I felt bad and made up my mind to leave the company of Sohrabuddin,” he said.

Huge holes in the official version of Pandya’s killing

Pandya had testified in confidence before the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal probing the 2002 Gujarat riots about the complicity of the Gujarat government led by Narendra Modi in the anti-Muslim violence. He also spoke to Outlook magazine off the record in June and August 2002 about a meeting he said Modi convened on February 27, 2002, in which he alleged the chief minister told the police “to go soft on rioters” and indicated that the Hindus be allow to vent their ire. As Outlook reported later:

The former revenue minister implored us not to reveal his identity under any circumstance since he feared the worst. “Don’t disclose my identity even verbally,” he had said. “My name should not be quoted in any story, not even as minister or BJP leader. If you write BJP leader, I will die. If you write minister, even then I will die.”

Pandya was shot dead seven months later.

In is investigation, the CBI, which was handed over the case by the Gujarat government, pursued the line that Pandya was killed on the orders of a Muslim fundamentalist cleric named Mufti Sufiyan to avenge the role he was said to have played in the 2002 riots. Sufiyan apparently fled to Pakistan the day before the men he is said to have motivated were arrested. However, at the trial it became apparent that the CBI theory did not add up. As discrepancies mounted between what the actual physical evidence disclosed and what the prosecutors argued, the trial court was forced to disregard many of the CBI’s more improbable claims. However, armed with confessions obtained in custody – the accused were charged under the erstwhile Prevention of Terrorism Act – the state in 2007 was able to secure the conviction of 12 persons.

Media reports during before, during and after the trial voiced public concerns about the glaring absurdity of the investigation and the curious disappearance of the clues – concerns that were validated when the Gujarat high court in 2011 acquitted the 12 men convicted. The high court bench was also scathing in its indictment of the investigators:

“What clearly stands out from the record of the present case is that the investigation in the case of murder of Shri Haren Pandya has all throughout been botched up and blinkered and has left a lot to be desired. The investigating officers concerned ought to be held accountable for their ineptitude resulting into injustice, huge harassment of many persons concerned and enormous waste of public resources and public time of the courts.”

The  CBI investigation was led by senior IPS officer Y.C. Modi,  who was made director of India’s premier counter-terror agency, the National Investigation Agency, by the Modi government in September 2017.

In a severe indictment of the CBI probe, the high court had stated: “The investigation clearly appears to have been so botched up and misdirected that the confessional statements recorded during police remand, before any police officer, could not be safely relied for convicting any of the appellants [of murder].”

Soon after the high court verdict, the Times of India reported how the gun used for the killing was actually found in Udaipur – home to Sohrabuddin – but shown by the CBI as having been recovered from Ahmedabad:

“What is curious is that the CBI in its chargesheet in the case had mentioned Ahmedabad as the place where the weapon of offence was found. In fact, one of the reasons why the case was thrown out was that the murder weapon did not match the bullets that were recovered from the body of the deceased. This is leading to the suspicion that the ‘murder weapon’ produced in the court may not have been the actual weapon of offence at all.

Despite these and other discrepancies that emerged during the trial and in the high court’s hearing and order, the CBI refused to launch a fresh investigation into Pandya’s killing. Instead, it went on appeal against the acquittals and the matter is now pending before the Supreme Court.

Prajapati disclosed there was `political pressure’ to arrest Sohrabuddin

In his testimony before the Mumbai trial court on Saturday, Khan said that in November 2005 he heard about the death of Sohrabuddin. And when a few days later he met Prajapati in Udaipur central jail, the latter claimed that he was tricked into giving information on Sohrabuddin to policemen. The cops told him that there was “political pressure” to arrest Sohrabuddin.

“Vanzara and other policemen wanted to arrest Sohrabuddin. He assured Tulsiram that after five-six months, he will be released. But Tulsiram said that both Sohrabuddin and Kausarbi were killed in a farmhouse in Gujarat,” Khan claimed.

Khan, an Udaipur-based gangster, also stated that Prajapati was fearful that he would be killed and had therefore lodged a complaint before an Ahmedabad court. “I last met Tulsiram on 23-24 December, 2006, when I was being taken into custody for some old theft case pending against me, while he was to be taken to Ahmedabad for a court hearing. He had told me that either one of us will be killed,” he deposed.

It was the CBI’s case that the accused policemen had deliberately separated Khan and Prajapati by seeking the former’s custody in a pending case. Later, the police claimed that Tulsiram escaped from police custody while he was being taken to Gujarat and that he was killed in an encounter.

This is not the first time that Khan has spoken of the Pandya link to Sohrabuddin’s killing. “The possible links between these high-profile cases emerged with the new probe agency, CBI, filing its first chargesheet in July [2010]”, the Times of India reported in 2011. “An important witness and Sohrabuddin accomplice, Azam Khan made a statement that IPS officer Abhay Chudasama, who is an accused in this case, told him that he had saved Sohrabuddin from being implicated in Pandya’s murder. This was the first indication towards a possible connection between the two cases.”

Vanzara blamed “conscious policy of government” for encounter killings

Incidentally, Khan’s claim of higher ups ordering the killing of Pandya and Sohrabuddin also finds an echo in a letter Vanzara had written in 2013 through which he had also resigned from his post.

The letter was sent by Vanzara to Gujarat’s additional chief secretary on September 1, 2013 while he was an undertrial prisoner at Sabarmati Central Prison. In this letter, he had stated that he and other officers, accused of alleged fake encounters, had only implemented the “conscious policy of this government”. By that logic, he had averred that the place of this government (which was then headed by Narendra Modi) was in jail.

“Gujarat CID/Union CBI had arrested me and my officers in different encounter cases holding us to be responsible for carrying out alleged fake encounters, if that is true, then the CBI Investigation officers of all the four encounter cases of Shohrabuddin, Tulasiram, Sadique Jamal and Ishrat Jahan have to arrest the policy formulators also as we, being field officers, have simply implemented the conscious policy of this government which was inspiring, guiding and monitoring our actions from very close quarters.
By this reasoning, I am of the firm opinion that the place of this government instead of being in Gandhinagar, should either be in Taloja Central Position at Navi Mumbai or in Sabarmati Central Prison at Ahmedabad,” he had written.

Drawing a parallel between the government and the jailed officers, Vanzara had written that they were “sailing in the same boat and have to swim or sink together”.

Ishrat Jahan Case: CBI Seeks Time to File Report to Prosecute the Two Former Cops

The court of special CBI judge J.K. Pandya adjourned the matter till October 22 for the central investigating agency to file its reply in the matter.

Ahmedabad: The CBI on Monday sought time from a special court, which heard the discharge applications of former police officers D.G. Vanzara and N.K. Amin in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case, to file a report on the status of sanction to prosecute the two accused.

The court of special CBI judge J.K. Pandya adjourned the matter till October 22 for the central investigating agency to file its reply in the matter.

On August 7, the special court had rejected discharge applications of both the accused.

At the same time, the court had ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to seek clarity on the status of sanction to prosecute the two accused under CrPC section 197 (dealing with prosecution of public servants) from competent authorities, which in this case is the Gujarat government.

The court had said it wants the prosecution sanction status of the two to be brought on record, after which charges will be framed against them.

Vanzara, a former deputy inspector general of police in Gujarat, had sought discharge on the ground of parity with the state’s former in-charge director general of police P.P. Pandey.

Pandey was discharged in the case in February for want of evidence against him.

Amin, who retired as a superintendent of police, sought discharge on the ground that the encounter was genuine and that testimonies of witnesses produced by the CBI were not reliable.

Discharge is a pre-trial process based on evidence on record.

The CBI has not initiated the procedure for seeking sanction to prosecute seven officers, including Vanzara and Amin, named as accused in the charge-sheet.

The probing agency had earlier sought the Union government’s sanction to prosecute four Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials whose names figured in the supplementary charge-sheet. Its plea was rejected by the Centre.

Jahan, a 19-year-old girl from Mumbai, along with three others – Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar – were killed by police in an encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

The Gujarat Police had claimed they had terror links and plotted to kill the then chief minister Narendra Modi.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT), constituted by the Gujarat high court, had concluded the encounter was “fake”.

Following this, the HC had transferred the case to the CBI.

In the first charge-sheet filed by the CBI in 2013, seven Gujarat Police officers, including Pandey, Vanzara and G.L. Singhal, were named accused.

All were booked for kidnapping, murder and conspiracy among other charges. Pandey was later discharged by the special court.

(PTI)

Police Officer Who Busted Sohrabuddin Encounter Case Says State Trying to Silence Him

“I was provided security for a reason. If a sitting judge can die suddenly, I am just an inconsequential retired police inspector. The government and the police can go to any extent to ensure everyone accused in the case gets a clean chit. They can kill too,” says V.L. Solanki.

Mumbai: Thirteen years ago, Vasant Laljibhai Solanki, a quiet and diligent police inspector with the Gujarat state police, was handed charge of the investigation into the encounter killings of  Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kauser Bi and associate Tulsi Prajapati. After a detailed investigation – the kind rarely seen in police departments anywhere in India when a fake encounter is alleged –  he fearlessly concluded that the encounters were fake and named the senior police officers who were responsible for the extra-judicial killings.

Apart from nailing several police officers for their involvement in the killings, Solanki’s efforts opened a can of worms that eventually saw the indictment of Amit Shah, now BJP president, for his alleged involvement in the conspiracy.

As the murder case, which was subsequently taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation, started collapsing after May 2014 in the face of the CBI’s own lack of interest and witnesses turning hostile, Solanki has stood his ground. This despite the acute threats and pressure that he claims he faced both from the police department and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

In an exclusive interview to The Wire as he awaits his turn to depose before the special CBI court in Mumbai that is conducting the criminal trial in the case, Solanki says the state has tried every trick in the book to ensure he stays away from the court.

The most recent attempt is the sudden withdrawal of security – originally provided to him nine years ago on the Supreme Court’s direction – by the state government.

Solanki, who is scheduled to depose before the court on September 21, told The Wire that he can’t be present before the court until his security is restored. “I was provided security for a reason. If a sitting judge can die suddenly, I am just an inconsequential retired police inspector. The government and the police can go to any extent to ensure everyone accused in the case gets a clean chit. They can kill too,” he said, referring to the unanswered questions surrounding the sudden death of judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya’s in Nagpur on December 1, 2014 Loya’s security had also been withdrawn shortly before his death.

Security mysteriously withdrawn

Vasant Laljibhai Solanki, the original investigating officer in the Sohrabuddin encounter case. Credit: Solanki family

In his first proper interview to the media since he first was assigned the Sohrabuddin case a decade ago, Solanki told The Wire that two constables – armed with automatic rifles – had been with him every day since 2009. But on July 18, 2018, the security officials mysteriously stopped coming. “I had round-the-clock security. This was provided on the directions by the Supreme Court in 2009, the same year, I retired from the police service. On July 18 this year, the security officials stopped coming to my place. No reasons were given for this sudden decision by the state government,” Solanki says.

Since then, Solanki has written at least eight letters, including to the state police department, the Supreme Court and the Gujarat high court and the special CBI court conducting the trial, to no avail.

“Feeling concerned about me and my family’s security, I had written to all these departments and hoped someone would intervene. Instead, each of them maintained a radio silence. And two months later on September 6, I was issued a summons from the special CBI court presided by judge S.J. Sharma asking me to be present before the court to depose on September 21. It was clear why my security was suddenly pulled out,” he asserts. Solanki further claims the state police pulled out his security only to “discourage” him from deposing before the court.

Solanki wrote letters drafted in Gujarati on July 20 to the director general of police (DGP) Gujarat, DIGP- CID Gujarat, DIGP- CID IB, home secretary – home department of the Gujarat state government, the Supreme Court of India, the Gujarat high court, DGP- CBI and  special CBI judge Sharma.

In these letters, which have been accessed by The Wire and confirmed from different departments where they were sent, Solanki has narrated the chain of event, his involvement in the investigation and the perceived threat to him and his wife’s life. In his letter, he claims, “I fear that I and my wife could be hurt in a mob attack. This is a high-profile case and I am an important witness in the case. Pulling out security right when the case is on trial and I am expected to depose before the court has disturbed me,” he writes.

Solanki feels his statement to the court will be most crucial in the case and can ensure that the “sinking ship” – that the case appears to be right now – can be saved with his testimony. But he told The Wire he can’t possibly reach the court from Ahmedabad until he is provided proper security. “I have mentioned this in each of my letters. In fact, I have even written on the court summon papers that I can’t make it to the court until the court ensures my security. It is the state and the judiciary’s responsibility after all to ensure that the witness is protected and is able to depose fearlessly.”

Solanki’s investigation reached all the way to the top

Solanki, as one of the first and the most trusted officers assigned the investigation into Sohrabuddin’s encounter in 2005, is also one of the most crucial witness in the murder trial which has seen several low points until now. Just going by the total number of hostile witnesses in the case – around 93 out of the 180 witnesses examined so far – it has slowly become apparent that proving the CBI’s charges against the remaining accused is not going to be an easy task.

“Three innocent lives were taken away in a sinister plan made by the politicians and executed by the police officers. There was no chance that I could be bought out.”

Besides, the prime accused including Amit Shah (who was Gujarat MoS (home) at the time of the crime), and several IPS officers like former Gujarat ATS chief D.G. Vanzara, Dinesh M.N. and Rajkumar Pandiyan have already been discharged from the case.  Other police officers like N K Amin, Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Vipul Aggarwal, and Rajasthan Police’s Dinesh M N and Dalpat Singh Rathod were also discharged by the Bombay High Court early this month.

This means that only 22 out of the 38 accused originally named by the CBI in its chargesheet are still facing trial. The 22 include inspectors, assistant inspectors, sub-inspectors and constables from Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. The trial in the case began in November last year and has since seen several twists and turns, with even the Sohrabuddin’s brother Nayamuddin turning hostile in the case. Two other brothers – Rubabuddin Shaikh, the original complainant in the case and  Shahnawazuddin Shaikh – have not turned up before the court for their deposition despite having received the summons.

Although just a police inspector when he was inducted in the core team to investigate the case under the supervision of IPS officer Geeta Johri, Solanki was among the most highly-rated investigators in the department. His rank at the time was inspector-general.

Allegation against Amit Shah

Solanki told The Wire that as a part of the investigation, he travelled across five states – Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – and “had gathered damning evidence directly implicating Vanzara and party”. “The first set of investigations were done without much political interruption. We had named the crucial accused in our first round of investigation. Johri madam blindly trusted me then,” he recalls, but then things changed. He alleges that Johri was one of the first officers who was allegedly approached in November 2006 by Amit Shah and asked to go easy on officers like Vanzara and Pandian.

“Things changed after that. The officer who blindly trusted me and would attend my phone calls even when she was midst of some important work was no more available. Johri madam was the first among the police officers to be bought out,” he alleged.

Solanki repeated what he has already told the CBI officers in 2011. “Johri madam asked me to go easy on the officers and asked me to alter several points noted in the investigation report I had prepared,” he claims. He further adds that since he has immense respect for his late father Lalji Solanki, he had told Johri, “Even if Lalji bhai comes and tells me that I must manipulate the investigation, I won’t. Johri madam was shocked seeing my guts and my readiness to defy anyone including her. Three innocent lives were taken away in a sinister plan made by the politicians and executed by the police officers. There was no chance that I could be bought out.”

In the first leg of investigation, which Solanki was a crucial part of, 15 suspects were interrogated and of them 13 were named as accused. However, it is on Solanki’s statement and the other chain of evidence that had emerged by 2011, that the CBI’s chief investigating officer Sandeep Tamgadge, a 2001 batch IPS office from the Nagaland cadre, had named Shah as an accused in the case.

“I was on the case until 2009. I was to retire from the service in 2007 but was given two extensions, of one year each and asked to continue with the investigation. We had done the initial investigation and our biggest achievement was to get the IPS officers who were at the helm of the affair implicated in the case. Shah’s name, although not mentioned in my initial investigation, [came up] only because of my statement to the CBI under the leadership of Tamgadge sir. He was the only officer I trusted and I knew he was a non-corrupt officer who was keen in getting to the depth of the matter,” Solanki claims.

Solanki, born in a Dalit family in Ahmedabad, studied at a Sainik school at Jamnagar. He says he does not believe in any “Ram or Rahim”. “My only god is Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. I believe in his principles and the constitution that he gave us,” he told The Wire

From 2011 and 2014, Tamgadge held multiple charges in the CBI and the most important among them was that of superintendent of police of the Special Crime Branch of CBI, Mumbai. During his stint with the CBI, he investigated the two cases involving the killings of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kauser Bi and a key witness, Tulsiram Prajapati. In the course of his investigation, it surfaced that Kauser Bi was raped before she was killed and her body was burnt and disposed of. Tamgadge was later also handed over the investigation in the alleged fake encounter killing in 2004 of college girl Ishrat Jahan.

Tamgadge was the first officer to have investigated Shah twice in connection with his alleged role in these killings – once in January 2012 in connection with Prajapati murder case and the next time in October 2013 in connection with Ishrat Jahan’s case. He was removed by CBI chief Ranjit Sinha from the investigation in April 2014, a month before BJP swept the general elections and Narendra Modi became prime minister.

‘Police can go to any extent, even kill me’

In his 35 year-long police career, Solanki says, the investigation in the Sohrabuddin murder case was the most challenging. “And, even 10 years since my retirement, I am living in constant stress,” he says. “I know they can never break me. But it is quite daunting on other people in my family, especially my wife, who fears the police can go to any extent, even kill, should need be.”

Solanki, born in a Dalit family in Ahmedabad, studied at a Sainik school at Jamnagar. He says he does not believe in any “Ram or Rahim”. “My only god is Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. I believe in his principles and the constitution that he gave us,” he told The Wire.

His children – three daughters and a son – now live in the United States and Canada. Solanki says, “If I wanted, I could have quietly struck a deal with the accused, taken money and shifted with my children. No one would have ever come to know about it. But how could I have faced myself?” he asks. His children too, he says, supported him right from the first day of the investigation and told him come what may, he won’t ever accept a bribe. “My wife Udayprabha is anyway a “Jhansi ki Rani (Queen of Jhansi)”. But my children were even more courageous and it is only my family that continues to give me the strength to stay firm on my decision to fight the system,” he says.

Solanki, who was due for promotion in 2004, claims he was denied his due after he refused to accept the demands of senior officials. “The recommendation for my promotion was sent in a seal cover to the home department and since then has been lying with the department. It is an irony that an officer who faced every challenge to ensure justice was denied what was due to him, but the murderers were given promotions even after they were arrested and had to face the trial,” he said.

He added that he is preparing to fight his case for promotion in court. “I do not like any injustice, either done to society or to me personally. I believe in fighting back.”

Sohrabuddin Case: Bombay HC Upholds Discharge of Vanzara, Four Others

The Central Bureau of Investigation had booked 38 people as accused in the “fake” encounters of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, Kausar Bi (in November 2005) and their aide Tulsiram Prajapati (December 2006).

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday upheld the discharge granted by a trial court to ex-Gujarat ATS chief D.G. Vanzara and four others, all of them police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan, in the case of encounter of suspected gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife and aide.

The court held that the applications challenging their discharge were devoid of merit.

Justice A.M. Badar also granted discharge to Gujarat police officer Vipul Aggarwal, a co-accused in the case related to the 2005-06 encounter of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and their aide Tulsiram Prajapati.

Aggarwal’s discharge plea was earlier rejected by the trial court and he had approached the HC seeking discharge on grounds of parity with Vanzara.

Justice Badar had conducted detailed daily hearings for about two weeks in July on the five revision pleas challenging the discharge of these officers, and the plea filed by Aggarwal.

In granting relief to former IPS officers Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and N.K. Amin of the Gujarat police, and Dinesh M.N. and Dalpat Singh Rathod of the Rajasthan Police, justice Badar held that the applications challenging their discharge were devoid of merit.

Sohrabuddin Shaikh’s brother Rubabuddin Shaikh had challenged the discharge granted in the case by the trial court to Dinesh, Pandian and Vanzara.

The remaining two revision pleas were filed by the CBI, challenging the discharge granted to Amin and Rathod.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had booked these officials, along with 33 other people, as accused in the “fake” encounters of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, Kausar Bi (in November 2005) and Prajapati (December 2006).

Between August 2016 and September 2017, a special court in Mumbai, where the case was shifted from Gujarat following a Supreme Court order, discharged 15 of these 38 accused.

Those discharged included 14 police officials and BJP president Amit Shah.

“Expected more from the high court”

Expressing his displeasure over today’s order, Rubabuddin Shaikh told The Wire that he expected better from the high court. “There was direct evidence against Pandian and Dinesh. These guys have played a direct role in the abduction of my brother and Tulsi Prajapati. The chargesheet clearly lists out the chain of events, the call data records and independent witnesses whose statements were taken by the CBI. I am surprised how the court did not take this into consideration and only looked at the witnesses who are turning hostile in the CBI trial court,” Rubabuddin said.

All the accused policemen had sought discharge on the ground that prosecution sanction under Section 197 had not been granted.

Of more than 175 witnesses examined so far by the trial court, around 90 have failed to support the prosecution’s case. The high court, while hearing the discharge petition, had on several occasions inquired about the updates in the lower court trial.

Rubabuddin said he is determined to fight this order in the Supreme Court. “I have endured a lot of pain and threat to my life in the past 13 years. I will not stop here. Once I have consulted my lawyer, I will move the Supreme Court,” he told The Wire.

Rubabuddin, who is also a witness in his brother’s murder trial and is yet to depose in the case, said he was served with a summon through a WhatsApp message in the first week of July and since he had met with a road accident, he could not make it to court. “The CBI too has shown no interest in ensuring that justice is delivered in the case. Like other witnesses, I too am under a tremendous pressure. I have received both veiled and direct threats to my life. Several attempts were made to physically harm me over the past year. If the condition does not improve, I might have to drop out from appearing before the court,” he added.

(With PTI inputs)