Ishrat Jahan case: Ex-IPS officer Vanzara moves court for bail

D G Vanzara, an accused in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case, today applied for regular bail before a special CBI court here.
Special CBI judge Gita Gopi posted the hearing on Vanzara's application on February 12.
"Vanzara has applied for regular bail. The main argument put by us for bail is that the CBI has relied on the statement of witnesses who were earlier accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case," said Vanzara's counsel V D Gajjar.
In its charge sheet in the encounter case last year, the CBI had named IPS officer G L Singhal, suspended IPS officers P P Pandey, Tarun Barot and N K Amin besides Vanzara. The agency had also named retired DSP J G Parmar and commando Anaju Chaudhary.

The CBI accused all of them of murder and criminal conspiracy with regard to the encounter killing of Ishrat (19), Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in June 2004.
The charge sheet said the encounter was fake and carried out jointly by Gujarat Police and IB.

The agency had said investigation in the case was going on and it will file a supplementary charge sheet once it is over.
Along with the charge sheet, the central agency had also attached statements of witnesses, who were working as police officers under Vanzara and others.

The statements of witnesses have been cited as evidence by CBI in the case while Vanzara's counsel has claimed that the witnesses were earlier accused in the case.
Vanzara (59), a former DIG, was suspended for his alleged involvement in a string of fake encounter cases.
He had resigned from IPS on September 1, 2013 accusing Narendra Modi government of having failed to protect the interest of policemen jailed for encounter deaths while they are implementing a "conscious policy" of Gujarat government for eliminating terrorism.