Vanzara Letter Lacks Credibility

There is complete lack of credibility of what the jailed police officer D. G. Vanzara says in his letter. An IPS officer of DG rank Vanzara says that he acted on the orders of the chief minister of Gujarat and Minister of State for Home Affairs. The law is clear in its terms. No individual, whosoever he or she may be and irrespective of position or post held by him or her can take shelter under the pretext or fact that he or she acted or executed the order of his superior if the act and execution is bad in law.

For instance, X is an officer and his superior may be a minister, or chief minister or even the Prime Minister orders him to kill ‘A’ and if he kills the target he is guilty of murder and is liable to be prosecuted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Any government officer can’t take the alibi that he committed a crime by executing the order of the government. If the order is illegal he should refuse to follow or execute it. This is what the rule book says.

Vanzara’s grievance is that the chief minister did not protect him from the law. How can a chief minister protect a person facing criminal charges? The only person who can defend Vanzara is his defence counsel.Vanzara in his letter says, “… I simply acted and performed duties in compliance of the conscious policy of the government”. The government never adopted a policy to eliminate people in false encounter.

Vanzara must have been a self seeker and careerist who saw an opportunity in going overboard to please his political masters. He did something that he was never asked to do. If any officer says that he treats his political boss like a God, he is a dangerous person. Such individuals would not hesitate to harm and even kill his boss if the later goes against him.

The language of the letter speaks of the deep rooted frustration of Vanzara. It also betrays some degree of mental instability.

The whole thing appears to be engineered to target once again Narendra Modi who is emerging as a big challenge to the Congress Party and its leaders. The Congress leaders are excited over Vanzara’s letter knowing little that such letter has no meaning. The Supreme Court of India has supervised the investigations into the Gujrat riots, the apex court has also handled petitions against Narendra Modi who has been given clean chit by the investigating agency.

Congress leaders are said to be busy trying to explore possibilities if Vanzara can be made approver in the case and if a fresh inquiry can be set up to probe the charges. Such dirty tricks don’t pay.

~R. K. Sinha