Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a reply opposing the discharge pleas of former IPS officer DG Vanzara and former Superintendent of Police NK Amin in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case. The probe agency has said it has enough evidence against the two. On April 14, a hearing scheduled on the discharge pleas of the two was adjourned by a special CBI court in Ahmedabad, after the probe agency asked for two weeks’ time to draft a reply to the same.
Vanzara and Amin had moved court seeking their discharge when their then superior officer, retired DGP PP Pandey, was discharged by the special court.
In his plea, Vanzara has claimed that the charges against him were “politically motivated” and that they were made “with a view to topple the democratically elected government, the entire plot appears to have been deployed by the then central government (UPA)… .”
Seeking to be at par with Pandey, Vanzara’s plea had claimed that “more or less he is also facing the same charges as Pandey,” and hence, he should be acquitted. Amin’s plea, on the other hand, had claimed that there was no forensic evidence against him which could help nail the charges. Amin was one of the police officers present at the encounter site when it took place. He is also alleged to have taken part in the firing.
The case pertains to June, 2004, when four individuals, Ishrat Jahan, her friend Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh, Amzad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Ahmedabad police on the outskirts of the city.