CBI Wanted to Arrest Narendra Modi, Amit Shah in Ishrat Jahan Fake Encounter Case: Ex-DIG D G Vanzara

Vanzara, who is out on bail in the case, had earlier submitted in the same court that Modi was secretly questioned by the case Investigating Officer when he was the Chief Minister.

Author: India.com News Desk

Published: June 6, 2018, 12:00 AM IST

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https://www.india.com/news/india/cbi-wanted-to-arrest-narendra-modi-amit-shah-in-ishrat-jahan-fake-encounter-case-ex-dig-d-g-vanzara-3094162/ Copy

Home Minister Amit Shah with PM Narendra Modi (File Photo)

Ahmedabad, Jun 6: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) wanted to arrest then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and then Minister of State for Home Amit Shah in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, state’s former Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police D G Vanzara told a special court on Tuesday.

Seeking discharge for D G Vanzara, his counsel V D Gajjar claimed that though the CBI intended to arrest Modi and Shah, “fortunately” it did not happen. Gajjar also claimed that the charge-sheet against his client in the case was “concocted” and that there was no prosecutable evidence against the former police officer.

While Modi is now the Prime Minister of India, Shah is the president of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Vanzara, who is out on bail in the case, had earlier submitted in the same court that Modi was secretly questioned by the case Investigating Officer when he was the Chief Minister.

In 2014, the central agency had given a clean chit to Amit Shah on grounds of “insufficient evidence”. Mumbai-based 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan, her friend Javed alias Pranesh, and Pakistani nationals Zeeshan Johar and Amzad Ali Rana were gunned down by a team of Vanzara’s men in a shootout in June 2016.

Ishrat Jahan and her friends were dubbed terrorists out on a mission to assassinate the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi. However, subsequent CBI investigation concluded that the encounter was fake. The CBI opposed the discharge plea of Vanzara.

Another co-accused and senior police official N K Amin too has filed a discharge plea in the same court. In his final submission, Amin, a retired SP and now a practising lawyer, claimed that Satish Verma, the Gujarat cadre IPS official who assisted the CBI in the investigations, had “tampered with the evidence”.

Both former police officers had also sought parity with former in-charge DGP P P Pandey, a co-accused who was discharged by the court. The court posted the matter for next hearing on June 15. Vanzara was last year discharged in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter cases.