According to annual property returns submitted by the IPS officers in Gujarat for 2011, Pandian owns immovable properties worth a total of Rs 1.65 crore in his native place of Meluridiapatti in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district, Prahladnagar in Ahmedabad, Palam Vihar in Gurgaon and Vasajada Kalol in Gandhinagar district.
Superintendent of police Girish L Singhal, a prime suspect in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, owns immovable properties worth Rs 1.51 crore, including a flat at Manichandra Society in Thaltej area of Ahmedabad, stated as bought by his wife.
The third richest among the fallen encounter specialists is suspended SP Vipul Aggrawal, jailed in the Tulsiram Prajapati encounter case. He own properties worth a total of Rs 1.15 crore, including properties in Ashok Vihar in New Delhi worth Rs 95 lakh and a flat worth Rs 20 lakh located at Florence Residency at Sola in Ahmedabad, which he purchased in 2007 in the name of his wife Kavita.
These details have been obtained by Mumbai-based NGO Kutch Ladayak Manch, which is run by Ramesh Joshi, a native of Kutch district. Joshi said the government only provided statements filed for the year 2011.
Interestingly, DIG Rajnish Rai who arrested encounter specialists D G Vanzara, Pandian and Rajasthan’s Dinesh M N in the Sohrabuddin encounter case in 2007, has declared that he owns only a flat in New Delhi which he purchased in 2002 at the cost of Rs 6.63 lakh.
Satish Verma, a DIG whose probe played a key role in establishing the Ishrat Jahan killing as a case of staged encounter, owns no immovable property, going by the papers he has submitted. He claims he “booked a flat located in Broun Avenue of Maple Country-2 scheme in Ahmedabad of Ganesh Housing Corporation in 2010, however, it’s not ready yet, thus not purchased.”
Suspended DIG D G Vanzara, who is the prime accused in the Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram encounter cases, claims to own properties worth Rs 46.5 lakh, including a flat “Gurukrupa” in Sector-19 of Gandhinagar and ancestral land in his native village of Illol in Sabarkantha district. An interesting detail emerges from his declaration. He says about a house, measuring 585 sq metres, at Illol, “Old house site owned by (his father) late Shri Gobarji Meethaji Vanzara is converted into a standing monument in his memory”. The house is jointly owned by D G Vanzara and his brothers K G and V G Vanzara.
Then there are officers like additional DGP P P Pandey, a suspect in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, who owns a bungalow worth Rs 16.25 lakh in Sector-8 of Gandhinagar, built on the land allotted by the Gujarat government, besides a flat in Memnagar which is worth Rs 6.25 lakh.
Geetha Johri, the additional DGP who was chargesheeted in the Tulsiram case, owns properties worth about Rs 14 lakh that includes a plot in Vejalpur, a flat in Shilalekh Apartment at Dariyapur in Ahmedabad and another plot in Gandhinagar.
The most striking case is that of suspended IPS officer Abhay Chudasama, who has said he owns land worth only Rs 1.35 lakh in his native village of Ratanpur in Bhavnagar district.