Gujarat: CBI to charge former top policemen in Jamal encounter case

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is ready to file a chargesheet on October 30 against former top Gujarat police officers DG Vanzara and PC Pandey in yet another fake encounter. The central probe agency has said that like the killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati, the encounter of Sadiq Jamal was also fake. Jamal was killed in 2003 outside a cinema hall in Naroda.

The Gujarat Police had alleged that intelligence inputs indicated that Jamal was a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist and had planned to kill BJP leader LK Advani, Chief Minister Narendra Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia.

CBI investigations have found that Mumbai crime branch and encounter specialist Daya Nayak had taken Jamal into illegal custody and handed him over to the Gujarat crime branch.

After the encounter, the Gujarat Police had alleged that Sadiq Jamal was a Lashkar terrorist and had planned to kill Narendra Modi.

A journalist who was witness to the handover, Ketan Tirodkar, has been arrested. The genuineness of the encounter became an issue after Tirodkar filed an affidavit before a court in Mumbai that he was a witness to Sadiq's handover to the Gujarat police by the 'encounter specialist' officer Daya Nayak of Mumbai police a few days before the alleged encounter. The High Court had in June 2011 ordered a CBI probe following a petition of Sabbir Jamal, Sadiq's brother.

Sources in the CBI say that Jamal was made to cross the Maharashtra-Gujarat border and then shot in cold blood. Sources say Naroda cinema hall was not the scene of crime. DSP Tarun Barot and a team of six policemen allegedly killed Jamal. Barot was arrested on Thursday and has been sent to judicial custody.

Sources claim that the encounter was staged at the behest of the then crime branch heads, Vanjara and Pandey, to curry political favours. The motorcycle and a gun was planted on Jamal to show that it was an encounter, sources add.

Sources also say that the weapon planted on Jamal was the same as the one planted on Ishrat Jehan, who was also killed in an encounter. The modus operandi in Jamal's case also seemed similar to the Sohrabuddin case.

(With additional information from PTI)

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