Dahyaji Gobarji Vanzara, popularly known as D. G. Vanzara, is the former

Inspector-General of Police An Inspector General of Police is a senior police officer in the police force or police service of several nations. The rank usually refers to the head of a large regional command within a police service, and in many countries refers to the most se ...

(IG) from

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He was in judicial custody from 2007 until his bail in 2015 on charges of having conducted a series of

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...

s, while heading the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS). He was acquitted in Sohrabuddin case in 2017. Vanzara joined the

Gujarat Police The ' is the law enforcement agency for the state of Gujarat in India. The Gujarat Police has its headquarters in Gandhinagar, the state capital, and Ahmedabad. The Gujarat Police Department came into existence after Gujarat's separation fr ...

as Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in 1980; upgraded to

IPS IPS, ips, or iPS may refer to: Science and technology Biology and medicine * ''Ips'' (genus), a genus of bark beetle * Induced pluripotent stem cell or iPS cells * Intermittent photic stimulation, a neuroimaging technique * Intraparietal sulcus, ...

officer in 1987 and got retired on 31 May 2014 as Deputy IG (DIG). After getting clean chit in fake encounter cases in February 2020, he was promoted to

(IG) post-retirement with effect from 29 September 2007.

Cases

officer of the 1987 batch, his tenure as head of the city crime bureau saw a spurt (rise) in encounter killings. The suspect killings include: * Sameer Khan (shot dead Sep 2002). * Sadik Jamal (killed 2003). * Ishrat Jahan and three others (shot dead 15 June 2004). *

Sohrabuddin Sheikh The Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case was a criminal case in the Gujarat state after the death of Sohrabuddin Anwarhussain Sheikh on November 26, 2005. A special CBI court acquitted all the 22 accused in the case in the alleged encounter kill ...

(shot dead Nov 2005). * Sheikh's wife Kausar Bi (killed in Vanzara's village). * Tulsiram Prajapati (killed on 28 December 2006). As of September 2013, there were 32 police officers, including six IPS officers, who were in jail for these encounters. Most of them had worked under Vanzara. Vanzara himself had a meteoric rise since the early 2000s, when the encounters to eliminate terrorists began. In 2013, in his letter of resignation, Vanzara stated, On 18 May 2008, ex-DSP N K Amin, also arrested in the case, told the court, "that a police-politician-criminal nexus was in operation in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case". The high level of direct communication from

Amit Shah Amit Anil Chandra Shah (born 22 October 1964) is an Indian politician currently serving as the Minister of Home Affairs since 2019 and the first Minister of Co-operation of India since 2021. He served as the President of the Bharatiya Janata P ...

, as minister, to an on-duty officer has also been questioned in court. In the Tulsiram Prajapati case, the encounter killing took place in Banaskantha district. Just 13 days earlier, Vanzara was surprisingly transferred there as DIG Border range. On questioning,

could not remember why. Shah has been indicted as the "kingpin and prime accused" in the Tulsiram Prajapati murder case. Vanzara's letter also refers to political mileage obtained from the killings. In the 2007 elections, Modi had asked the electorate as to what was to be done with people like Sohrabuddin, to thunderous responses of "Kill him!". In September 2013, after six years in prison, Vanzara, who calls himself a "nationalist Hindu" and looks upon

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

as "god", has become disgruntled. He is said to have suggested a connection between the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case and the unsolved murder of ex-BJP minister

Haren Pandya Haren Pandya was the Home Minister of Gujarat in India. He was allegedly murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car (the place of his murder is contentious), after a morning walk in the Law Garden area in Ahmedabad. ...

, who at one time a minister under

. Pandya was shot dead while out on a morning walk in March 2003, a year after his fallout with Modi. In 2003, it was Vanzara who had originally investigated the Pandya murder. Similar claims have also been made by the DNA newspaper, which has suggested that Sheikh was eliminated because of his links to the political murder of Pandya. Vanzara was released on bail on 18 February 2015. He was acquitted in Sohrabuddin case in August 2017, due to lack of evidence.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanzara, D.G. Living people Indian police chiefs Year of birth missing (living people) Prisoners and detainees of India