The Hindu : National : Vanzara role alleged in another ‘encounter’

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Vanzara role alleged in another ‘encounter’

Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD: A “petition-in-rejoinder” filed in the Gujarat High Court on Friday alleged the involvement of the former Gujarat Deputy Inspector-General of Police, D. G. Vanzara, in yet another fake encounter.

The petition was filed by Shabbir Jamal Mehtar, brother of Sadik Jamal Mehtar who was killed in an “encounter” in Ahmedabad on January 13, 2003, much before the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case in November 2005, in which Mr. Vanzara and 12 other police officials were convicted.

Shabbir’s petition was a rejoinder to one filed by Gandhinagar District Superintendent of Police Girish Singhal on April 14 claiming that Sadik was killed in a “genuine encounter.”

The rejoinder was based on a confessional statement of an undertrial prisoner, Ketan Tirodkar, before the Mumbai MCOC court on April 28.

Ketan, a former journalist who was close to the Mumbai police “encounter specialist” Daya Nayak, said Sadik met him in Mumbai in early January 2003 seeking some “help.” He claimed that around this time a “big politician of Gujarat” approached Daya Nayak for a “militant” to be killed in an encounter.

He and Daya Nayak profiled Sadik as a member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang and a Lashkar-e-Taiba contract killer out to eliminate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Ketan asked Sadik to meet him near the Andheri fly over on January 11. From there he took him in a vehicle provided by Daya Nayak to the Borivili national park where three persons, including a woman and a “bearded man,” were waiting. He did not recognise the “bearded person” at the time. But after seeing Mr. Vanzara’s photographs, he was prepared to say on oath that he was the man.

He later came to know that Daya Nayak detained Sadik for a few days at the Andheri police station to “create his criminal background.”

The petitioner pointed out that it was clear from Ketan’s confessional statement that Sadik was in police custody at the time he was shot dead and it was yet another case of a cold-blooded fake encounter.

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