AHMEDABAD: A CBI court on Thursday granted bail to former DIG D G Vanzara in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. As Vanzara was granted bail last year in another encounter case – Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter – he will walk free now, after more than seven years.

The court has barred Vanzara’s entry into the state of Gujarat except for marking presence before the court on every 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month.

In granting bail, special CBI judge K R Upadhyay has imposed various conditions on him. Vanzara has been ordered to be released at furnishing personal bond of Rs 2 lakh and two sureties of equal amount. The court has said that Vanzara should not be indulging similar offence against and not tamper with evidence.

The court has observed that as per the CBI’s case, there were 14 police officials that were involved in the operation, but the chargesheet came to be filed only against seven persons.

The court also took into consideration the status of the deceased persons – Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zishan Johar. The mentioned in his order that the Central Intelligence Bureau had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court and claimed that these four persons had nexus with terrorist organization. But the CBI did not deny these charges.

Moreover, the court also observed that the alleged operation conducted by the crime branch was not for any private party.

The court also observed that ever since the allegations were made against Vanzara, no case of tampering evidence or influencing the witness has been reported against Vanzara.

Earlier in the day, the same court granted bail to suspended additional director general of police P P Pandey . Now only one cop – N K Amin remains behind bars. The other accused cops got default bail in 2013 only as CBI delayed filing of chargesheet.

READ ALSO: Ishrat encounter: Suspended ADG Pandey gets bail

Interestingly, CBI has filed another chargesheet a year ago in this case, but it is still lying in magisterial court without a number. The court has not taken cognizance of the chargesheet against IB officials including to cop Rajinder Kumar because of want of certain sanction from government.

Ishrat and three others were killed on June 15, 2004 in the outskirts of the city. After the encounter, the city crime branch dubbed all four as Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who were on their mission to kill then chief minister Narendra Modi in order to avenge the 2002 riots.

