Mysterious death of Gujarat woman tribal cop: Top activist alleges effort to push the case under the carpet

Vasanti Vasava

By A Representative
Senior Gujarat human rights activist Manjula Pradeep has alleged that frantic efforts are underway to ensure that those responsible for the mysterious death of Vasanti Amarsinh Vasava, 28-years-old tribal woman police constable between November 24 and 26 in South Gujarat go scot-free. In a statement, Pradeep, who heads NGO Navsarjan Trust and was the chief campaigner for the arrest of the main accused in the mysterious death of Vasava, said, “It seems that caste factor is ruling in the Gujarat police department”, and hence one is “not sure that the family members of the deceased tribal woman constable would be able to get any justice.”
Calling the whole case highly sensitive from the political standpoint, Pradeep indicated that this could be seen in the fact that the deceased is a tribal and the accused a Rajput, She said, there is already a need to look into certain important facts following the FIR registered against the accused, Vijaysinh Dipsinh Vaghela, who worked as police writer in the police station.

“Investigating officer Shreya Parmar, DySP scheduled tribe and scheduled caste cell, has gone for 10 days’ leave. The postmortem was done only on November 28 at the SSG hospital, Vadodara, but the complainant has not been given a copy of the post mortem report and the video CD of the post mortem”, Pradeep said in her statement, released on Friday.
Pradeep underlined, “The complainant has been to the SSG hospital, Vadodara, thrice, but was not given postmortem report.” Then, “the second accused, i.e. wife of the main accused, Shilpaben Vijaysinh Vaghela has filed an application for quashing and setting aside the FIR order in the Gujarat High Court on December 21, 2014. The second accused has also filed anticipatory bail application at the sessions court, Rajpipla, which was not granted.” But, significantly, “she has not been arrested by the police although it is an atrocity case.”
Working at Rajpipla police station in South Gujarat, Vasava was found dead at her house, located in the police quarters of Rajpipla town. Her body was found on November 26, 2014, at around 8:30 pm in Quarter No 43. “Raghuvir Amarsinh Vasava, who is the brother of the deceased, was not informed by the police; he came to know about the death of his sister from a third person. He rushed to the police quarters, and saw his sisters dead body in standing position while her neck tied with the ceiling fan. The body fell down on the floor when the police cut the nylon thread with which she was tied”, Pradeep said.
In fact, according to Pradeep, Raghuvir Vasava tried to lodge FIR at the Rajpipla police station on October 26 evening, but cops refused to entertain the complaint. After struggling for almost 16 hours, FIR was lodged on November 27, 2014 in the evening against the two accused namely – Vijaysinh Dipsinh Vaghela and Vijaysinh’s wife – at the Rajpipla police station under various provisions of the criminal procedure code and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities or PoA) Act.
Pradeep indicated, what has also not been looked into is that, both the accused are living at the same place, where the deceased was living. The deceased was living in Quarter No 43 on the third floor, while the accused is living with his family in Quarter No 39 on the second floor. A suicide note was found near the dead body of the deceased stating that she was dying on her will and no medical tests should be done after her death”, Pradeep added.