Vanzara blames Modi, Shah for 'encounter' killings

Jailed Gujarat police officer D.G. Vanzara has quit the police service after blaming Chief Minister Narendra Modi and former home minister Amit Shah of betraying police officers now in jail for alleged "encounter deaths".

In an explosive 10-page letter addressed to Gujarat's additional chief secretary and made available to the media Tuesday, Vanzara stated that "this spineless government of Gujarat ... has ceased to command my allegiance, trust and loyalty".

The letter, dated Sep 1 and written from Sabaramati Central Prison, has accused Shah, a Modi confidant, of betraying all 32 Gujarat and Rajasthan police officers in various jails for allegedly killing terror suspects.

Vanzara said if he and his colleagues could be charged with "alleged fake encounters", then the CBI would have to "arrest the policy formulators also as we, being field officers, have simply implemented the conscious policy of this government".

He went on: "The logic is very simple, i.e. government and police officers are sailing in the same boat and have to swim or sink together. None should try to outsmart the other and try to swim at the cost of other".

Vanzara accused Shah of employing "dirty tactics" to save himself "while ditching the police officers so as to ... allow them to die unnatural death by drowning.

"By adopting such a suicidal path, this government is doing nothing else but hastening and facilitating its own death by drowning."

Vanzara said he had for long adored Narendra Modi like a God.

"But I am sorry to state that my God could not rise to the occasion under the evil influence of Amitbhai Shah...

"His (Shah's) unholy grip over the state administration is so complete that he is almost running the government of Gujarat by proxy."