A CBI special court on Saturday allowed retired Gujarat IPS officer D G Vanzara, a key accused in the Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter cases, to return home to Gujarat. The court modified the bail condition that had confined Vanzara to Mumbai for the past one year.
Special judge SJ Raje pronounced the order allowing Vanzara’s bail modification plea. The judge said that the condition of not entering Gujarat and staying within the limit of Mumbai has been removed. As soon as the order was pronounced, Vanzara’s son Prithvi “hailed judiciary” and said that “my father can come home now after nine years of long wait.” He said that there will be celebrations.
The family has suffered a lot due to the cases and several family functions were on hold for the past many years which will now be started, he said.
In his bail modification plea, Vanzara had mentioned that his life was under threat in Mumbai which is “a native place of hardcore and internationally declared criminals like Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel”.
Vanzara is confined to Mumbai as per the bail condition imposed first by Bombay High Court while granting him bail in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case. Later, the special CBI court also barred him from entering Gujarat while granting him bail in the Ishrat Jahan case.
Last month, the Bombay High Court lifted this condition and allowed him to leave Mumbai. However, due to the condition imposed in the Ishrat Jahan case, Vanzara had moved before Ahmedabad special CBI court.
Following the High Court relief, Vanzara filed for bail modification plea stating, “…the applicant (Vanzara) is Z-category protected person and so far the Mumbai city is concerned, it is the native place of hardcore and internationally declared criminals like Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel and others who are facing red corner notices. The applicant while on service has booked such criminals and detected and unearthed the criminal conspiracies and their crime against the nation and the terrorists’ acts conspired or committed by them.”
The plea further states, “The applicant has constant and serious threat from such declared criminals as well as certain terrorist groups like SIMI, India (Indian) Mujahidin and Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaise Mohammad (Jaish-e-Mohammad), etc. Such terrorist groups have wide spread networks in the city of Mumbai, therefore the applicant is facing serious threat to his life in Mumbai…accordingly, to force the applicant to stay in Mumbai or outside Gujarat would amount to putting the applicant inside the jaws of death.”
The application also says that Vanzara is suffering from “skin allergy disease and the doctors at Ahmedabad have advised him to avail home-made food with various changes in food items and on experiment bases so as to detect the allergenic food substance.” It further adds that Mumbai is not his home and home food is not possible. Vanzara also sought parity with his senior officer and co-accused DGP P P Pandey. He said in the application, “Charges levelled against him (Pandey) are either equal or more grave than the applicant. However, there is no condition of bail order of Pandey for not to enter Gujarat.”
CBI counsel R C Kodekar had objected to Vanzara’s move. He said, “We are concerned about the witnesses being tampered and hampered if the modification is allowed.”