DG Vanzara seeks return to Gujarat; files plea before CBI court

Ahmedabad: Former IPS officer and accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter killing case, DG Vanzara, filed a plea before the special CBI court in Ahmedabad on Monday to modify his bail condition and to allow him to stay in Gujarat. [caption id=“attachment_2144185” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Former IPS officer DG Vanazara. AFP[/caption] Vanzara was granted bail in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case on 3 February this year under a condition that he would not enter Gujarat. Special CBI court Judge KR Upadhyay is likely to hear Vanzara’s plea seeking the modification in his bail condition on 17 March. In his plea before the CBI court, the former IPS official demanded that he should be allowed to reside in Gujarat because his entire family lived here and his medical treatment is being done in the state. Vanzara also said that he would neither influence any witnesses nor hamper the probe into the fake encounter case, while mentioning that the court had accepted in its bail order that he did not make any such attempt to influence the probe. The CBI court had said in the bail order that Vanzara is barred from entering Gujarat. He has also been directed to mark his presence before that court on every working Saturday. Vanzara, who remained behind the bars for around seven and half years, is also barred from leaving the country. Vanzara came out of Sabarmati Jail on February 18. Vanzara, who had a stint in the city crime branch as well as the Gujarat state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) head, was made an accused by CBI in the alleged fake encounter cases of Soharabuddin Sheikh, Tulsi Prajapati and Ishrat Jahan. Vanzara was arrested on April 24, 2007, by CID Crime Branch in connection with the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter killing case and ever since, he has been behind the bars. Vanzara was Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) in the city crime branch when a Mumbra-based college girl Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter with the Gujarat police on the outskirts of the city on June 15, 2004. The city crime branch had then said that those killed in these encounters were Lashkar-e-Taiyaba (LeT) terrorists who had reached Gujarat to kill the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. CBI took over the probe from the Gujarat High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT). CBI filed its charge sheet in August 2013 stating that the encounter was “fake” and a joint operation was carried out by the city crime branch and Intelligence Bureau (IB). PTI