Haren Pandya

Haren Pandya was the Home Minister of Gujarat in India. He was murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car (the place of his murder is contentious).) after a morning walk in the Law Garden area in Ahmedabad.

Political career

He represented the Ellis Bridge constituency of Ahmedabad City as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator. He was a member of the RSS from his early age and was also a Municipal Councillor from the Paldi Area of Ahmedabad City. Pandya was a strong supporter of Keshubhai Patel an in 1998, after the BJP came to power in Gujarat with Keshubhai as Chief Minister, Pandya was made Home Minister of Gujarat. He was appointed as Minister of state for revenue after Modi took over as the Chief Minister, however he resigned from the post in 2003. Fearing that he would be denied a ticket for the 2002 assembly elections, he withdrew from the electoral fray. Later he was appointed to BJP's national executive.

Haren Pandya wife Jagruti Pandya contested on Gujarat Parivartan Party ticket in 2012 on the premise that the Modi Government was involved in the conspiracy to murder her husband. She quoted "My husband's assassination was a political murder. For the last 10 years I have been fighting a legal battle to get him justice but in vain, however, I will continue to fight.

After the Godhra riots, it was reported that Pandya, in a cabinet meeting, had opposed the bringing of the bodies of the victims of Godhra carnage to Ahmedabad because that would arouse passion. He was the only person able to arrange meetings between victim's family members and Muslim leaders for Peace talk But he was shouted down at the meeting by some ministers

Murder and aftermath

On 26 March 2003, at about 7.40 am Pandya was killed by two unidentified assailants who shot five bullets at him when he had just finished his morning walk in the Law Gardens in Ahmedabad. His body lay in his car for two hours. Pandya's family started worrying when he did not return home and sent his personal assistant Nilesh Bhatt to check on him. Bhatt found him lying dead in his car.

In 2007, a special Pota court had sentenced the main accused from Hyderabad, Asgar Ali, to life imprisonment, while handing out simple life imprisonment to seven others, 10-year jail term to two and five years imprisonment to one. They were all held guilty of murder and conspiracy to spread terror in Pandya murder case and attempted murder charges in the case of VHP leader Jagdish Tiwari. A lot of controversy followed his murder and top BJP Leaders such as Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the then Deputy Prime Minister of India Lal Krishna Advani were under intense criticism from within the Sangh Pariwar and General Public for sidelining Haren Pandya and not providing him proper security despite threats to his life and his request for security cover. Sanjiv Bhatt had even alerted Pandya about a threat to his life and even spoke out about Pandya to SIT probing Godhra riots.

On August 29, 2011 all the 12 people accused of murdering Pandya were acquitted of the murder charges by the Gujarat high court, but other charges including criminal conspiracy and attempt to murder were retained. The high court called the CBI's work a "botched up and blinkered" investigation.

Reports on Sohrabuddin Sheikh's involvement in murder

In August 2011, after the court dismissed the CBI case, the newspaper DNA reported that Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a criminal who had earlier been killed by the Gujarat police in a false encounter, and his associate Tulsiram, may have been "used to kill Haren Pandya". Citing unnamed sources in the Gujarat State Police, they said that Sohrabuddin was initially given the task but he back-pedalled and the murder was then executed by Tulsiram. In the encounter killings of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram, the Gujarat state attorney K T S Tulsi has admitted before the court that these individuals were killed by the state police. These encounter killings were a result of unease among the conspirators:

However, the alleged conspirators at whose behest Pandya was killed began to lose confidence in Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram and, eventually, their equations began to worsen, the source said. The change of power at the Centre after the 2004 Lok Sabha elections gave the alleged conspirators another reason to eliminate Sohrabuddin and Tulsi in fake encounters.

A similar charge has been made by ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who was told by an inmate in Sabarmati jail about Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram's involvement in the murder. When Bhatt mentioned this to Amit Shah, Shah sounded "very disturbed over the telephone" and asked him "not to speak about it to anyone". Bhatt followed this up with a letter to Shah detailing the "involvement of Sohrabuddin and some policemen in the murder". Bhatt was immediately transferred from Sabarmati jail, and was eventually suspended.

D.G. Vanzara, an ex-IPS who had originally investigated the Pandya murder, and has been in jail for six years on charges of coordinating the Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram encounters, told the CBI in Sept 2013 about Sohrabuddin's role in Pandya's murder. Vanzara has also blamed Modi's Home minister Amit Shah for ordering the series of encounter killings. The CBI has charged Amit Shah with being the "kingpin and prime accused" in the Tulsiram Prajapati murder case.