Fake encounter case: 'My stand vindicated,' says Vanzara; Ishrat's mother to move HC

Retired police officer D. G. Vanzara, who was discharged by a special CBI court on Thursday in the Ishrat Jehan fake encounter case, has said that his stand that the shootout was genuine stands vindicate

Speaking to THE WEEK after special CBI court judge J.K. Pandya accepted his and another former cop N.K. Amin's discharge pleas, Vanzara said, “God is great. The encounters were genuine. Genuine encounters were done. Because of some political conspiracy, fake cases were registered against us. Now my stand is vindicated. All these encounters were done as part of my duty.”

The proceedings against Amin were also dropped.

The former police officers had given discharge applications after the BJP government in Gujarat refused to give permission to prosecute them and said that the encounters were done as part of “official duty” .

Vanzara and Amin had given applications on March 26. Under section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code, sanction of the government is necessary to prosecute a public official.

In August 2018, the court had rejected the discharge petitions after the CBI had challenged it arguing that it had sufficient evidence to prove that Vanzara was the mastermind and that Amin was present when the encounter happened. 

Questioned whether they would be able to prove that encounters were genuine, should Thursday's order be challenged in the higher court, Vanzara said that it is a legal procedure. “It is end of the case and not the procedure,” he remarked. 

On June 15, 2004, Ishrat, hailing from Mumbra in Mumbai, and three others including Parnesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh and Zeeshan Johar, were killed in an “encounter” on the outskirts of Ahmedabad near Kotarpur water works. The Detection of Crime Branch had claimed that the four were operatives of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba and had come to kill the chief minister of the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014. They were allegedly under crime branch's detention before the encounter took place. 

Noted lawyer Vrinda Grover, who had argued the case before the CBI court in Ahmedabad and filed written submissions on behalf of Shamima Kauser, Ishrat's mother, told THE WEEK that they will challenge the order in the high court and continue her struggle for justice.

Grover was not in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

Grover said that it has been held in multiple landmark judgments of the Supreme Court that illegal detention, even for a few days, is outside the scope of a police officer's duty. “The illegal abduction, unlawful detention and the murder of Ishrat and others can thus never fall within the course of duty and no sanction is required for acts which are outside the scope of a police officers' duty,” she held.