New Delhi: Former Gujarat police officers DG Vanzara and NK Amin will no longer be accused in the 2004 Ishrat Jehan fake encounter killing. A CBI court on Thursday approved their request for discharge.
The former police officers had been charged with conspiracy, illegal confinement and murder in the Ishrat Jehan case by the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI.
DG Vanzara and NK Amin filed discharge requests in the court after the Gujarat government refused to grant sanctions to the CBI to prosecute them.
Special CBI court judge JK Pandya said since the government had not sanctioned their prosecution, their discharge pleas would be allowed and the case against them would be dropped. The government’s sanction is necessary for the prosecution of a public servant for any action that was part of official duty.
Former Gujarat police chief PP Pandey had been discharged in the case last year. He spent 19 months in jail before being let out on bail in February 2015.
19-year-old Ishrat Jehan and three others were killed in June 2004 near Ahmedabad by Gujarat police officers who said they were Lashkar terrorists planning to assassinate Narendra Modi, who was then Chief Minister.
The CBI’s first charge-sheet in 2013 named seven Gujarat police officers including Mr Pandey, DG Vanzara and GL Singhal.
