Bombay HC upholds Vanzara's discharge

The Bombay High Court on Monday upheld a special court's order discharging former police officer D G Vanzara and four others in the  Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case.

Besides Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian; N K Amin of the Gujarat police; Dinesh M N and Dalpat Singh Rathod of the Rajasthan Police, got the relief.

Justice AM Badar held that the application moved by Sohrabuddin's brother, Rubabuddin, challenging the discharge given to the five policemen by the special CBI court in Mumbai was devoid of merit.

Justice Badar also granted discharge to Gujarat Police officer Vipul Aggarwal, a co-accused in the case.

Who is Vanzara?

Vanzara is a former IPS officer who had held the rank of deputy inspector general of anti-terrorism squad of the Gujarat police.

The case 

According to the CBI case, suspected gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi were abducted by Gujarat anti-terrorism squad when they were on way to Sangli, Maharashtra, from Hyderabad.

They were killed in a reported fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005.

Tulsiram Prajapati, a key witness in the reported fake encounter, was killed by police at Chapri village in Banaskantha district of Gujarat, in December 2006.

The Gujarat police had claimed that Sohrabuddin had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Vanzara was arrested in April 2007, in connection with the encounter, however, the Bombay High Court had granted him bail in September 2014.