by A. J. PHILIP
Suspended police officer DG Vanzara has been in jail for the past six years for his role in four fake encounter cases. In a damning 10-page resignation letter to the Gujarat government, the former DIG, ATS, Gujarat Police, says a lot of things that should be a cause for worry to Chief Minister Narendra Modi. TEXT/PHOTO/Tehelka
Dear Shri Vanzara,
I read in one go your long letter of resignation from the Indian Police Service. What impressed me is your decision to abjure all your claims to pecuniary benefits that would have accrued to you in the course of time. Perhaps, you would have thought that there was no likelihood of your release from jail and you would in any case have forfeited all your claims to such benefits.
Your letter reminded me of three people. One is Warren Hastings, who as Governor-General, laid the foundation of British rule in India. He claimed that he did everything for his country but that did not prevent British Parliament from initiating impeachment proceedings against him which continued for seven years. One of the charges against Hastings, who was jailed, was the “execution” of Nandkumar, a tax official in Calcutta.
Unlike all those who were killed in fake encounters in Gujarat, Nandkumar was killed in a fake judicial process over which Hastings had control. By the time Hastings was acquitted by majority vote, he had been pauperized while his lawyer had built a mansion in London. The East India Company did not defend him against charges that he had made money and exceeded his brief as Governor-General.
The other person I am reminded of is Ajit Singh Sandhu, who was SSP of Tarn Taran during the days of militancy in Punjab. Sandhu committed suicide by jumping before a train near Dera Basai. He was also an encounter specialist but could not face the CBI case against him. A few years later, his colleague Vivek Mishra, who killed several “terrorists” in “encounters” in Gurdaspur, committed suicide in the state capital. He was facing a CBI case too.
You have neither jumped before a train like Sandhu nor pulled a trigger like Mishra, but your letter is nothing but suicidal. However, you are clever enough not to attack Chief Minister Narendra Modi directly, though when you claim that the right place for the Gujarat Government is either of the two jails you mention, a discerning reader can make out who you are targeting.
If there is one constant refrain in your letter, it is your sense of disillusionment over the treatment meted out to you and fellow police officers by the Gujarat Government. To be frank, I had also thought on your lines, although for different reasons. How could Modi send you to the “wolves” when he claims to be the only gutsy chief minister in the country? He knew that defending you and your encounters could have drowned him, too, in criminal cases and finished his political career.
Unlike you, Modi knows which side of his bread is buttered. In your case, you made the biggest mistake of your life in treating Modi as second only to “God”. I am glad that you have finally found that he is a man with feet of clay who does not even defend his comrades-in-encounters. As a police officer, you should have known that your loyalty is not to anyone, however ambitious and mighty he may be, but to the Constitution of India.
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