'A special CBI court dropped charges against Additional Director-General of Police, Gujarat, Geeta Johri on Monday in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter cases, saying the CBI had failed to obtain the mandatory sanction from the Gujarat government for prosecution of an IPS officer. “Prosecution against Johri stands dropped for want of sanction,” Judge M.B. Gosavi said after her counsel, Sachin Pawar, moved a discharge application on the ground that the sanction had not been obtained... Ms.
'Controversial ex-IPS officer DG Vanzara, an accused in the fake encounter cases of Ishrat Jahan and Soharabuddin Sheikh, on Wednesday walked out of the Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad after spending almost seven and half years in prison. Soon after his release, an elated Vanzara said, "Surely, acche din (Good days) have returned for me and other Gujarat police officers." The former Gujarat top cop alleged that the state police was targeted for "extra legal political reasons". "Police of every state in the country fought against terrorism.
'If you saw the programme on IBN7 last night, vilifying Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand, with BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra and Sangh spokesperson Rakesh Sinha at their asabhya virulent best, shouting down and intimidating mild Sandeep Pandey and shouting continuously throughout whatever feisty Priyanka Chaturvedi (Congress spokesperson) had to say (which was hard-hitting and unanswerable), you would know what the case against the two activists is really about.
'Four days after a CBI court granted bail to suspended IPS officer PP Pandey in Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, Gujarat government today revoked his suspension and reinstated him in service. “The state government has revoked the suspension order of PP Pandey and appointed him on the vacant cadre post of Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), Gujarat state, Gandhinagar,” an order issued by state Home Department said...
'The order by the Central Bureau of Investigation providing a clean chit to former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah has wiped out the entire slate of the Supreme Court's intervention in various encounter death cases. The discharge of the "lynchpin" of the conspiracy despite voluminous material providing strong grounds for proceeding with the trial will ultimately raise questions about judicial independence. It is a matter of record that the State of Gujarat – after stout denial – admitted that Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife had been killed in illegal police custody.
"To some they are heroes, but in the eyes of the Gujarat government, they are villains. Satish Verma and Rajnish Rai, both IPS officers, were each assigned a police encounter case. They concluded from their investigations that policemen had killed persons in their custody in cold blood. They filed cases against policemen involved and arrested them. For their efforts, the Gujarat government has banished them to Meghalaya and Jharkhand as chief vigilance officers (CVOs) at PSUs. This is designed to make it difficult for them to follow up and depose in the cases investigated by them.
"A report by People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has held growing influence of BJP and right wing Hindutva groups over police and administration; and nexus between police , politicians and criminals as the ‘chief factors’ contributing to the recent communal tension in Vadodara.
"India is no stranger to mobs rampaging through neighbourhoods breaking vehicles, assaulting residents and sometimes firing guns. If the mob is composed of policemen, however, the situation demands even stricter attention. A fact-finding mission by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties has found that much of the violence that engulfed Vadodara in the last week of September was not only due to lackadaisical policing, but actively caused by the men in uniform.
" A common thread appears to have emerged from a series of communal incidents in Gujarat over the last two weeks, with residents of the areas affected blaming an alleged nexus between local VHP activists and police in triggering the violence. All the clashes were sparked by crackdowns on the sale of beef during Navratri and Bakrid — the slaughter of cows is banned in Gujarat.
DG Vanzara, NK Amin and JG Parmar, the encounter specialists of Gujarat, are in a fix yet again. Right before the 2002 Rath Yatra, news papers in Gujarat carried the news of a plan to attack the Rath Yatra which was foiled by Ahmedabad Crime Branch in a big way. The Gujarat Police claimed that they had seized large amounts of ammunition including rocket launchers, bombs, revolvers, rifles and so on. Twenty two people were arrested by a team led by Vanzara abd NK Amin. JG Parmar was the investigating officer for this case.
