Haren Pandya : The Slain BJP Politician Who Refuses To ' Die '

BY R.K.MISRA

Ghosts from the past have an uncanny way of turning up in the present with immense potential to blight the future of the most powerful.

On November 3, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case told a Mumbai court that the murder of senior BJP leader and a former Gujarat minister Haren Pandya in 2003 was a contract killing executed at the behest of former IPS officer D.G.Vanzara.

The  deposition of  Azam Khan, an Udaipur based small time gangster before the CBI court has brought to life the most speculated and worst-kept secret of the time-- that the murder of the  up and coming Gujarat BJP leader was a political extermination at the behest of some of the most powerful in the land of the Mahatma.

Vanzara terms it as yet another conspiracy to defame him. ”Azam Khan is a criminal. There are cases against him in Gujarat, Rajasthan and some other states. Even today he is in jail. Moreover his evidence is hearsay. It does not account for much under the Indian Evidence Act and is not admissible under law. Moreover when CBI recorded his statement, he did not say any such thing”.

Khan, though, had said  during further cross-examination, that he had told the CBI officer, N.S.Raju  about the contract killing but it was not taken on record on the pretext of not creating new complications.

The revelation about Pandya’s killings  surfaced in the course of the proceedings in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake killing case in 2005, in which Vanzara was an accused  with the then Minister of state for Home, Amit Shah and IPS officers Raj Kumar Pandiyan and Dinesh MN. They have all been discharged from the case along with other police officers such as  N.K.Amin and Vipul Aggarwal, to name a few. According to one count, 90 of the total witnesses examined in the case so far have turned hostile. In short, the big guns are free, while  lower rank officers and constabulary are facing the music.

Though fake encounters by cops have taken place earlier, these acquired a pattern during Narendra Modi’s  stint as Gujarat chief minister. These encounters included those of Sadiq Jamal (2003),  Ishrat Jahan and two others (2004),Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi (2005) and Tulsiram Prajapati (2006). Almost all of them were labelled as handles of Pakistani terror agencies out to get  the  CM. Most of the time, the  senior cop unravelling these conspiracies was led by Vanzara. Interestingly   32 police officers including  six IPS officers were incarcerated in connection with a series of police encounters in Gujarat.

According to a published  report, during an interrogation by a CBI team of Vanzara led by DIG Sandeep Tamagde  in Sabarmati jail in September 2013, he had hinted at a political conspiracy behind Pandya’s killing. He also reportedly spoke of  Sohrabuddin’s role  in Pandya’s murder in March 2003. His interrogation took place after he had written an explosive letter resigning from the IPS in which he  reportedly blamed Shah for the encounters.

What  transpired within the CBI after Vanzara’s interrogation is not known but the fact remains that Azam Khan’s  revelation echoed what the accused IPS officer had hinted in 2013 -that Pandya’ killing was political.

Haren’s father, Vithal Pandya also termed his son’s death as a political conspiracy orchestrated by Vanzara at the behest of the then chief minister.The octogenarian, who passed away in January 2011, went down fighting. He did not agree with CBI’s line of investigation and  was livid  with then union Home Minister L.K. Advani for blaming ISI and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, days before  CBI took over the probe. ”It was Advani who set the line of investigations for CBI and derailed the probe”, Vithal said. He added that his constituency, Ellisbridge in Ahmedabad, had remained peaceful even during the 2002 riots that followed the Godhra train carnage..

Haren Pandya ,was a rising star in the BJP in Gujarat and was immensely popular within the party. He  held the home portfolio in the Keshubhai Patel government and revenue in the first Modi government..The first point of friction between the two was Modi’s choice of  Pandya’a Ellisbridge  seat to enter the Vidhan Sabha and Pandya’s refusal to oblige. Modi  was subsequently elected to the Assembly from Rajkot, on a seat vacated by Vajubhai Vala, the present Governor of Karnataka.

In the immediate aftermath of the Godhra train carnage, Pandya is reported to have opposed bringing the burnt body remnants of the passengers by road from Godhra to Ahmedabad  ,at a cabinet meeting. He said  it would further  ignite communal passions ,but  he was shouted down. What followed is history .Though kept confidential, it is known that Pandya had testified before the Concerned Citizens Tribunal on the 2002 Gujarat riots. It comprised of three retired judicial luminaries.That Pandya was a marked man thereafter was known. He had also expressed fears of his likely  liquidation to chosen contacts in the media as well.

Vithal Pandya never tired of pointing to the political conspiracy that led to his son’s killing. He did not even agree with the POTA court judgment on June 25, 2007 that sentenced nine people to life imprisonment for the murder of Haren.If he had been alive, the old man would have felt vindicated on   August 29, 2011  when the Gujarat High Court reversed the lower court’s order terming it “perverse” and “illegal”  and which did not consider scientific evidence  presented in the injuries , forensic and ballistic reports. It criticized the CBI  for a “botched” and ” blinkered” investigation and said that the investigating officers” ought to be held accountable for their ineptitude, resulting in injustice, harassment of many people concerned, enormous waste of public resources and public time of court”.

It is against this backdrop that one needs to view Azam Khan’s testimony purely in relation to Haren Pandya’s case even though it links the fake encounters with it ,particularly the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati cases.

According to Azam’s testimony  “during a discussion with Sohrabuddin, he told me he along with Naeem Khan and shahid rampuri got the contract to kill Haren Pandya and they killed him. I felt sad and I told Sohrabuddin that they have killed a good person. Sohrabuddin told me that the contract to him was given by Vanzara. Khan  also testified in court that Sohrabuddin had told him that  this work had come  from above.

Haren Pandya’s  body was found in his Maruti-800 riddled with seven bullets,with the windows rolled up except for the driver’s side.There was no blood in the car except a tiny solitary drop on the adjoining seat. One does’nt  need  an expert to tell you that he had possibly been abducted, killed elsewhere and  the body put back in his car which was kept at the venue of his morning walk .

The investigating agencies, the Gujarat police initially and the CBI soon after ,apparently seemed more intent in covering up than in exposing the real killers.

The last has not been heard in the matter though the fate of  Haren Pandya and many other encounters  have inextricably got linked to a political see-saw.