Suddenly the chickens are coming to roost in Gujarat. D G Vanzara, a suspended IPS officer from the Gujarat Police and one-time favourite of chief minister Narendra Modi, threw everyone into a tizzy. The bearded police officer who was arrested on April 24, 2007, for his role in the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Shaikh and disappearance of his wife Kausarbi, shot off his resignation letter which became cannon fodder for those opposed to Modi. In the letter made public on September 5, Vanzara felt he had been betrayed by his god, read Modi, who he said was unable to come out of the ‘evil influence’ of his aide Amit Shah, currently BJP in charge in UP.
The resignation letter of the so-called super cop of Gujarat created a massive political storm in the country. In his resignation letter Vanzara claims of serving the nation and fighting against jehadis; instead he has managed to add some controversies of his own. The burden of the long letter tries to prove himself and his officers languishing in various jails of Gujarat and Maharastra as innocent men merely following policies of the Gujarat government to fight terror.
In his letter, Vanzara has made many contradictory statements which prove that he and his officers have been more than willing pawns. Vanzara claims himself and his officers to be loyal soldiers of Gujarat’s Modi government. There is no word about loyalty to India’s Constitution which gives him all powers to protect law and order in the land. Instead he blames Modi and his lieutenant Amit Shah for the fate of his police officers who were equal partners in crime.
According to one retired police officer, there was little point in blaming political bosses when officers willingly sold themselves for lucrative posts and money? The officer also demands a probe into the financial transactions conducted by Vanzara. ‘‘During many inquiries, nobody has looked at this aspect. Most arrested IPS officers were in good positions, why did they gamble their careers away and entrap themselves for their political bosses by bumping off so-called terrorists to help them gain political advantage,’’ the officer says on request of anonymity.
Continues Vanzara: “I have been observing right from the year 2002 that MOS Home Amit Shah had been completely mismanaging a sensitive department like the police which should been handled more carefully in context of the Godhra train burning, post-Godhra riots and resultant rise of jehadi terrorism in Gujarat. I am sorry to state that instead of providing innovative and benevolent leadership for keeping the police force of the state intact, Amit Shah introduced a much-despised British policy of divide and rule coupled with equally dirty policy of using officers and throwing them out by deliberately spreading disinformation about them.’’ The point is this: If that was the case and Vanzara was well aware of Amit Shah’s dirty tricks since 2002, why did he allow himself and his officers to be used. If he was aware of Shah’s use and throw policy, why did he decide to serve him by setting aside his constitutional responsibilities?
In Vanzara’s own words, ‘‘When all the ways and doors for getting justice are exhausted and closed, it is just (dharma) to fall back upon. Accordingly I have moral justification to expose real culprits behind encounter cases.’’ Heady words indeed.
According to the implicated policeman, the Modi government was never interested in protecting him and his team but clandestinely made all efforts to keep them in jail to save its skin from a CBI investigation and reap political benefits. Vanzara alleges that apprehending the arrest of political leaders, all efforts were made by the state government to ensure that none of them was released on bail so as to prevent investigations going from the hands of Gujarat CID to CBI. There is little doubt that a CBI probe would have exposed his political masters.
Says one political analyst: ‘‘If Vanzara is telling the truth, it means that the Gujarat Police eliminated suspected terrorists in so-called encounters. The state government, in the form of Amit Shah knew about these deaths and all this was part of policy laid down by Modi himself.” Congress leader Arjun Modhvadia claims that Modi had deliberately adopted fake encounters so that people of Gujarat live under continuous threat and sympathy wave conditions be created in his favour.
Vanzara states in his letter that if we are responsible for fake encounters, then it is true that the CBI needs to arrest those who formulated this policy, people who guided the police team from very close quarters. Very troubling statements indeed and particularly volatile as the buildup for Narendra Modi as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate gathers momentum.
