india

Updated: Aug 01, 2017 22:06 IST

A special CBI court discharged two senior IPS officers – Gujarat’s former deputy inspector general DG Vanzara and senior Rajasthan officer Dinesh MN – in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati encounter cases on Tuesday.

With this, the Mumbai court has discharged 15 people accused in the two cases. The exonerated people include all senior IPS officers with the exception of Vipul Aggarwal – who has been booked for conspiracy and execution of Prajapati’s allegedly fake encounter.

Vanzara’s discharge comes as a jolt to the CBI investigation, considering that he was termed as the main conspirator in the case. Dinesh, on the other hand, had led the police team responsible for eliminating Sheikh.

Vanzara and Dinesh spent almost seven years at the Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad before being released on bail. While Vanzara retired in June 2014, Dinesh was promoted the same year he was let out.

Sheikh, a gangster, was travelling on a Hyderabad-Sangli bus with his wife Kausar Bi and Prajapati when they were allegedly abducted by a Gujarat anti-terrorism squad on November 23, 2005. Three days later, Sheikh and Bi were killed in a “fake encounter” near Gandhinagar.

Tulsiram, the sole witness to their abduction, was killed a year later. Gujarat police said they shot him down while he was trying to escape at Banaskantha’s Chapri village in December 2006.

Sheikh was accused of extorting money from marble traders in Rajasthan, among other crimes. Vanzara intends to contest in the upcoming Gujarat assembly election.