Ishrat encounter: Vanzara arrested, BJP cries foul

On a day when the CBI arrested suspended Gujarat police officer DG Vanzara in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case, the BJP charged the Centre with the misuse of CBI to target Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

On a day when the CBI arrested suspended Gujarat police officer DG Vanzara in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case, the BJP charged the Centre with the misuse of CBI to target Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

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Modi – seen as a frontrunner for the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate – has been blamed for alleged fake encounters of Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh during his tenure as chief minister.

At a time when he is attempting an image makeover, party colleague Arun Jaitley sprung to his defence, accusing the Centre of misusing the CBI in the wake of reports that the agency would question IB officials over their inputs that led to the encounter.

"Motives could be attributed to them (IB) for having collected material against the Lashkar-e-Taiba and passed it to Gujarat Police. Only Pakistan and LeT would have the last laugh. The myopic political regime in Delhi has not realised the significance of destroying institutions," Jaitley said in an article.

Vanjara has been in judicial custody in Mumbai facing murder charges in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh killing case. The Mumbai court had issued orders to shift Vanzara to an Ahmedabad jail following the CBI city court’s order to grant his custody to the agency in the Ishrat Jahan case.

Vanzara had led a Gujarat police team that gunned down four persons including Ishrat, describing them as LeT trained terrorists out to target Modi, in June 2004.

Meanwhile, the CBI also interrogated Ahmedabad sessions court chief public prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt in the case. Bhrambhatt is considered to be a close to key Modi aide Amit Shah.