Ketan Tirodkar, former Mumbai-based journalist and accused in Sadik Jamal Mehtar fake encounter case, has shown expressed concern over his security from another accused in the case, DG Vanzara, who is also lodged in Sabarmati Jail. Tirodkar requested the magistrate of CBI court to lodge him at a place where Vanzara or his men would not be able to get access to him.
Tirodkar, arrested by CBI on July 5, was sent to judicial custody till July 25. He will be lodged in Sabarmati Central Jail, where Vanzara and cops accused in another encounter case have been lodged.
“Don't keep me with Vanzara and other Gujarat cops. I feel threatened by them as they are suspects in Sadik’s killing,” he appealed to the court.
Since special investigating officer and deputy SP of CBI, SK Rathi didn't press for further remand of Tirodkar, the court sent him to jail under judicial custody.
At that point Tirodkar expressed his apprehensions about Vanzara and nearly a dozen other policemen, lodged in Sabarmati Jail as undertrials. The court, however, asked him to approach the jail superintendent, who can take a decision according to the prison manual. When Tirodkar sought the court's permission to file his bail application, the judge asked him to move it before a competent court. “This is a magisterial court and doesn't have the power to hear bail applications of an accused arrested on the charge of murder," Judge Khutwad noted.
Sadik, a resident of Bhavnagar, was killed in an encounter by Gujarat police in Ahmedabad on January 13, 2003. The police had then claimed he was an LeT operative on a ‘mission’ to kill CM Narendra Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia.
