By Express News Service
MUMBAI: The special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here, on Tuesday, dropped charges against former Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief D G Vanzara and former superintendent of police from Rajasthan M N Dinesh in the case of alleged fake encounters of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati.
This is the same case of 2005 in which former Gujarat home minister and current BJP national president Amit Shah had been jailed in 2010.
Vanzara said after the court’s verdict, “The court has declared both of us innocent. Indian judiciary might be slow but justice has finally been done.”
Vanzara, a deputy inspector general (DIG), was arrested in 2007. He was released in 2014, after spending over seven years in jail, by the Bombay High Court for lack of evidence.
Gujarat police had claimed that Sohrabuddin had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba. He and his wife Kausar Bi were allegedly abducted by the Gujarat ATS from Hyderabad on their way to Sangli in Maharashtra.
Sohrabuddin was killed in an alleged fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005, after which his wife disappeared. Prajapati, an aide of Sohrabuddin and an eyewitness to the encounter, was allegedly killed in Chapri village in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district in December 2006.
Sohrabuddin, a history-sheeter, used to run many extortion rackets. One such case of extortion was reported to the-then home minister Amit Shah by the marble traders lobby from Gujarat and Rajasthan.
A plan was hatched to nab Sohrabuddin and orders were given to Vanzara. All this was said to have happened while there were no cases against Sohrabuddin in Gujarat.
The charge sheet against Vanzara said he filed a case against Sohrabuddin with the help of Ahmedabad Crime Branch chief.
