Date:06/05/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/05/06/stories/2007050604240800.htm

National

Police remand of IPS officers extended

Manas Dasgupta

Hearing on plea for brain-mapping tests fixed for May 8

AHMEDABAD: The Metropolitan Court here extended the police remand of three senior IPS officers, accused in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, to three more days.

D.G. Vanzara, DIG (border range), and two police superintendents, Rajkumar Pandian of Gujarat cadre and M.N. Dinesh Kumar of Rajasthan cadre, were produced before the court after their five-day remand ended on Saturday. The police sought a further 10 days remand but the court only granted three more days. The police officers were placed under seven days police remand after their arrest on April 24, which was extended by five more days on Monday.

The court also fixed for May 8 the hearing on the police plea for permission to send the three officers for brain mapping and narco-analysis tests at the Forensic Science Laboratory in Gandhinagar.

Inspector-General of Police Geetha Johri, the new investigating officer, is apparently planning to toe the line her predecessor DIG Rajnish Rai was planning to take — to send the accused to FSL for tests. Mr. Rai was reportedly withdrawn from the investigation and Ms. Johri brought back after he confided in his superiors his plans to send the trio for the tests. Demonstrations and counter-demonstrations were staged in the court premises when the three accused were produced before the magistrate. A section of the demonstrators wanted "justice" for Tulsiram Prajapati, an accomplice of Sohrabuddin, who was allegedly killed in another fake encounter on December 28 last year, but were opposed by Mr. Vanzara's "sympathisers."

Security was tight in the court compound and the situation was soon brought under control. Mr. Vanzara enjoys "Z" category security as the former chief of the Anti-Terrorist Squad.

The extension of the police remand will provide relief to the jail authorities after Intelligence Bureau inputs that the trio, particularly Mr. Vanzara, faced threat to his life in jail.

Nothing concrete has come out so far out of the reported searches in the Sabarmati Central Jail, where POTA detainees, many of whom were arrested by Mr. Vanzara, had smuggled in acid bulbs and other deadly weapons to attack the DIG.

The State authorities are reported to have decided to either send the three accused to different jails or lodge them in a well-protected sub-jail in Mehsana, about 50 km from Gandhinagar.