Guj cadre IPS officer Rajnish Rai seeks voluntary retirement

Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rajnish Rai, who had arrested D G Vanzara and two other IPS officers in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case in 2007, has sought voluntary retirement from service, sources said today.

Rai, 52, who is currently on the Central deputation with the CRPF and posted at Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, has forwarded his application seeking early retirement to both the Centre and the Gujarat governments, they said.

A senior official of Gujarat Home department said they are yet to receive Rai's application.

Rai, who is on the Central deputation since 2014, is a 1992-batch IPS officer from Gujarat with Inspector General (IG) rank.

He is currently heading the Counter Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism (CIAT) School of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Chittoor in the southern state.

Prior to his current posting with CIAT, Rai had served as the IG, CRPF, in the North East sector.

Rai had claimed to have submitted a report about a "fake encounter" in Assam in 2017.

He had several run-ins with the earlier BJP governments in Gujarat headed by the then chief minister Narendra Modi.

When he was with the state CID in 2007, Rai had arrested senior IPS officers D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh MN in connection with the alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.

Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were allegedly abducted by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) from Hyderabad on their way to Sangli in Maharashtra.

Sheikh was killed in an alleged fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005. His wife was also believed to have been done to death.

Prajapati, an aide of the gangster who was believed to be the witness to the encounter, was allegedly killed by police at Chapri village in Gujarat's Banaskantha district in December 2006.

Vanzara was the Deputy IG of Border Range when the alleged encounter took place.

The Sohrabuddin killing case was transferred to Mumbai in September 2012 on the request of the CBI for a fair trial.

In 2013, the Supreme Court had clubbed the alleged fake encounter case of Prajapati with that of Sheikh.