By IANS
New Delhi : The Congress Monday accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of hatching a conspiracy to physically eliminate controversial police officer D.G. Vanzara to "create a communal situation" before the elections in the state.
Congress spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi said Monday: "A conspiracy is being hatched by Narendra Modi, his government and the BJP to eliminate Vanzara, create a communal situation again, polarise Hindus and Muslims on communal lines, engineer Hindu-Muslim clashes and then make a political capital out of it during the coming state assembly elections."
Elections to the Gujarat assembly are due at the end of this year.
Chaturvedi said: "We have just now been informed of this conspiracy. There is a conspiracy to again re-polarise the state on communal lines for which a plan is being hatched to kill Vanzara and then implicate some Muslims and re-polarise the situation."
"We are raising this issue only because we want proper protection for Vanzara. We want that he should go through full legal process and the others involved in these (fake encounters) killings be fully exposed," said the Congress spokesman.
Vanzara and two other police officers were arrested last month for alleged involvement in the staged killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and the subsequent murder of his wife Kausar Bi in November 2005. Sheikh was later branded a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist who was on a mission to kill the Gujarat chief minister.