DG Vanzara: All you need to know about Gujarat's former 'supercop'

Suspended Gujarat cop Deputy Inspector General of Police Dahyabhai Gobarji Vanzara, today in a 10-page resignation letter said that he and other officers were used and exploited by former junior state home minister Amit Shah and the government and have now been deserted by them. Before he was charged with murder and arrested in the fake encounter case of Sorabhuddin Sheikh in 2007, Vanzara was a celebrated encounter specialist in Gujarat often known as a “supercop”. Vanzara who was known to be close to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, saw his career graph go up in the early 2000s. — The 1987 batch IPS officer was famous as an encounter specialist when he was at Gujarat’s Crime Branch. — Beginning 2002 Vanzara had conducted many “encounters” citing that each of them were of “ terrorists out to kill Modi”. [caption id=“attachment_1082323” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Suspended Gujarat cop, Dahyabhai Gobarji Vanzara, today resigned from the IPS. AFP[/caption] — When Vanzara was the deputy commissioner of police in 2004, 19-year-old student Ishrat Jahan and three others were shot dead on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in June that year. Ishrat’s mother had at the time said she was the victim of a “fake encounter” but police said she was a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative. — When Vanzara was the head of Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorist Squad in 2005, Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were taken off a bus in November 2005 by members of the ATS team and were taken to a farmhouse near Ahmedabad, where they were held hostage. A few days later, Sohrabuddin was allegedly taken to a highway and shot dead. Kausarbi disappeared. Following the Sohrabuddin killing Vanzara held a press conference and said the man killed had been a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist and was plotting to assassinate Modi. — Next year in 2006, Tulsi Prajapati, a supposed accomplice of Sohrabuddin and a police informer, was killed in an encounter in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district that December. Prajapati was a witness in the Sohrabuddin case. A few days before Prajapati was killed, Vanzara was transferred to the Border Range Police, which has jurisdiction over the district where Prajapati was killed. — Vanzara was arrested in April 2007 by the Gujarat Crime Investigation Department (CID), in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case and which sought permission to conduct a narco-analysis test on him. Vanzara’s lawyer argued against it saying Vanzara suffered a heart ailment and that the chemicals injected would be detrimental to his health. — After Vanzara’s arrest, other killings with a question mark came to light. There was Samir Khan, killed in Usmanpura, Ahmedabad in 2002. Sadik Jamal of Bhavnagar, killed in 2003 and whose parents insist it was a fake encounter. All killings where Vanzara was involved. — A Times of India report on April 30 in 2008, said that that Vanzara and Deputy Superintendent of Police NK Amin, also arrested in the Sohrabuddin case, had attacked each other with cricket bats at the Sabarmati jail. The report said, jail inmates heard Amin accusing Vanazara for their misfortune. Amin later turned approver in the case. — Vanzara is now being investigated for the Tulsi Prajapati encounter case by the Gujarat CID, granted permission by a CBI Court. Meanwhile, the trial in the Ishrat Jahan case begins next week. — In a resignation letter today , Vanzara accused Amit Shah of being an “ace strategist” squarely laying the blame for his arrest on the then Home Minister Amit Shah — also an accused in cases the Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsi Prajapati murder cases. He also said that he had considered Narendra Modi as “God” but that “I am sorry to state that my God could not rise to the occasion under the evil influence of Amit Shah who usurped his eyes and ears.”