The Gujarat government has granted promotion to retired IPS officer D.G. Vanzara, who was a key accused in fake encounters of Sohrabuddin and Ishrat Jahan and others, with retrospective effect after he was discharged from the cases. He has been promoted from Deputy Inspector General to Inspector General (IG) level with effect from September 29, 2007.
Mr. Vanzara retired from service on May 31, 2014. Later on he was discharged by court from both cases in which seven persons were allegedly killed by police in staged encounters.
He was arrested by the Gujarat Police CID (Crime) in 2007 after his name cropped up in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. Subsequently, his name emerged as a key accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case as well.
“Consequent to clean chit received from Judiciary in all Encounter Cases which were concocted by Anti-National Forces against me & Gujarat Police, I am given Post-Retirement Promotion of Inspector General of Police wef 29-09-2007. I am thankful to both Govt of India & Govt of Gujarat,” Mr. Vanzara tweeted along with the copy of the government notification.
After his arrest in March 2007, Mr. Vanzara remained in jail for around seven years.
The Sohrabuddin case was transferred to Mumbai in September 2012. He was serving as Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) of Border Range at the time of his arrest.
Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed in an alleged fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005, after which his wife disappeared. According to the CBI, she, too, was killed.
The central agency had claimed that Tulsiram Prajapati, Sheikh’s aide and an eyewitness to the alleged encounter, was later killed by the police at Chapri village in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district in December 2006.
