Dressing for battle
'Encounter specialist' ex-IPS D.G. Vanzara, who returned to Gujarat after nine years-eight of them in jail-is now readying for a shot at politics.
On April 9, retired IPS officer D.G. Vanzara, 60, returned to a hero's welcome in Gandhinagar, nine years after he had been arrested in the alleged fake encounter killings of Ishrat Jahan in 2004 and of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005. All through his stint in jail, he had blamed "dirty politicians" for his plight, saying they are "the real anti-nationals" and alleging that he and his colleagues were pawns in their games.
Yet it's politics, he hinted, that will be his ultimate refuge. That perhaps explains his presence at the RSS meet in Ahmedabad on April 11, where Sangh volunteers apparently jostled with each other to shake hands with him, with one volunteer even touching his feet. He was greeted with a similar response three days later, when on the occasion of B.R. Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary, Dalit leaders, and even a few Congressmen, swarmed around him near the Ambedkar statue in old Ahmedabad where everyone had gathered to pay their respects to the Dalit icon. He ended up visiting nearly a dozen tents of different Dalit organisations that had set up camp there.
Vanzara's imminent arrival on the political scene, on the eve of the 2017 Vidhan Sabha polls, at a time when the BJP seems to be losing its hold on the state, is significant. Though he has dropped enough hints about joining politics, he is still enigmatic about details. "Let's see where destiny takes me," he said, when asked if he would join a political party. One would think he burnt his bridges with the BJP when in his September 1, 2013, resignation letter from Sabarmati jail, he said there was "no reason to trust this government and its ace strategist Shri Amitbhai Shah, who convincingly proved himself to be completely self-centred". But when Gujarat BJP chief Vijay Rupani was asked if Vanzara would join the BJP, he first said there was no such move yet, and then hastened to add, "But who can tell the future?"
Chief of the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Vanzara was arrested on April 24, 2007, as a key accused in the Sohrabuddin case. He was in Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad till 2012, when the trial was shifted to Mumbai and he was sent to Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai. In 2013, he was arrested for the Ishrat Jahan case and brought back to Sabarmati jail. The Bombay High Court granted him bail in 2014, and the next year he was released on bail in the Ishrat Jahan case too, but not allowed to return to his home state. This April, the CBI court relaxed this restriction too, enabling Vanzara to return to his Gandhinagar home after nine long years.
"Now my second innings has begun," Vanzara said on his return. "I fielded in the first inning, but in the second innings, I will bat and those who were after me will field. I mean the anti-nationals, traitors and political conspirators who acted against me."
Popular support for Vanzara is palpable in Gujarat. The day he landed at the airport, in a red tee and white trousers, a crowd of ex-colleagues, family and members of his community, BJP, RSS and VHP activists and ordinary folk gathered to greet him, some wearing t-shirts emblazoned with his photograph and wearing saffron caps. They showered rose petals on him, waved the tricolour, even chanted 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'. He was then taken to the Town Hall in Gandhinagar, where Gujarat DGP P.P. Pandey, who is also an accused in the Ishrat Jahan case, said it was Ram Navami but it felt more like Vijaya Dashmi, and conferred on him the title of Rajarshi for "the penance he [Vanzara] has done in jail and his exploits against anti-nationals earlier".
His supporters see Vanzara as someone who has made sacrifices for a bigger cause. He could easily have come out of jail, they say, had he deposed against Modi under Congress pressure by just saying that it was the Gujarat chief minister who had ordered him to bump off Ishrat and Sohrabuddin. His statement would have carried weight as Modi held charge of the home portfolio at the time while Shah was minister of state for home.
"Few can deny Vanzara's popularity," says political analyst Vidyut Thakar, "not just in Gujarat but in many other parts of India. He is seen as a victim of the machinations of anti-national forces under the cloak of politics."
RSS worker and businessman Haresh Thakkar concurs: "Apart from being a victim of UPA's political conspiracy, hatched by enticing some Gujarat police officials, Vanzara was also a victim of a conspiracy hatched by pro-radical Muslims or anti-national elements." He also insinuates that the CBI investigation into the Sohrabuddin case was hurriedly ordered as a quid pro quo deal with the then UPA government.
Human rights activists and members of the minority community are not so convinced. "Vanzara's entry into politics will be a low in Indian politics. A villain will turn into a political hero," says Gautam Thakar, a civil rights activist.
Adds veteran journalist Prakash Shah, "My worst fears about deteriorating standards in our public life stand confirmed." Vanzara remains an accused in the Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh cases. He is among the 28 accused in the Sohrabuddin case and around a dozen in the Ishrat Jahan case. Vanzara claims that under section 197 of the CrPC, the CBI should be asked not to prosecute him and all other police officers as they had acted in the "national interest". "The UPA government had denied CBI permission to prosecute four Intelligence Bureau officers in the Ishrat Jahan case in 2013. The same should be done in our case. The entire world knows that we were victims of a political conspiracy. So it needs a political but legally sound response," he told India Today.
While in jail, Vanzara apparently lectured inmates on Hindu philosophy. He also authored three books in Gujarati: Vijay Path (Victory March), Sinhgarjana (Roar of a Lion) and Rann Tankar (Battle Cry), the last one a collection of poems released in 2012 by Gujarat DGP Shabbir Hussain Khandwawala.
His current resolve is to dedicate himself to public life. It's what he said the day he landed in Gandhinagar: "I am in public life from today itself. When in [police] service, I served the nation by targeting anti-nationals and terrorists. Scarcely any terror attack took place in Gujarat till I and my police colleagues went to jail. Now I will serve the people by being in public service." It will all depend, of course, on whether his past will let go of him.