THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DEC 3, 2017.

Now that Justice Loya’s unfortunate death is in the news again, it is worthwile to go through it once again.

***Original Article Begins***

The campaigning for the Gujarat elections is at the very last stage and the stakes are quite high for the two bitter enemies Congress and BJP. Any election that is held, right from local body elections and university elections to state assembly elections, is seen as an acid test for PM Narendra Modi and his trusted lieutenant Amit Shah. Even a small reduction in the number of seats or vote share would be seen as a setback for the duo and projected as the common man’s anger against GST and demonetization. To add to this, Gujarat is PM Modi’s home turf and the BJP has been ruling the state for the last 22 years. Neither Anandiben Patel nor CM Vijay Rupani has been able to fill in the shoes of their charismatic predecessor Modi and the pundits see this as a chink in the BJP armour.

Congress on the other hand is on a losing spree since 2014. They have lost state after state and the various misdeeds of the dynasty have been comprehensively exposed, and this has resulted in an ongoing anger against the first family. The eternal crown prince of the Congress, whose coronation is yet again on hold, has not helped his cause either by again displaying his IQ or the lack of it. Like any other campaign that starts on Vikas, this campaign has turned dirty with sex CDs, houses of Muslims being ‘marked’, Hindu vs Muslim and has culminated in the prince’s sudden laughable transformation into a janeudhari Brahmin.

In the midst of all this, media houses like The Wire and The Caravan have turned important stakeholders in the high profile election. These media houses have been tasked with bringing disrepute to Modi and Shah by hook or crook and we had self-proclaimed investigative journalists like the abusive Swati Chaturvedi and Rohini Singh, who cannot differentiate between profit and turnover, coming up with half baked and shoddy articles to influence the electorate. These articles, despite the lack of any credibility, have been lapped up by the Congress and Modi haters like the incorrigible Prashant Bhushan and the likes.

The latest attempt has been made by The Caravan by opening up a 3-year old case of the death of Justice Loya, who was overseeing the alleged fake encounter case of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh.

First things first. Who was Sohrabuddin Sheikh? Sohrabuddin was a dreaded and notorious gangster, who had more than 60 cases pending against him at the time of his death. The cases ranged from extorting protection money from marble factories in Gujarat and Rajasthan, arms smuggling and murder. He also had links with the Chhota Dawood and Abdul Latif gangs, both of which were close to India’s underworld kingpin Dawood Ibrahim. He was also associated with the global terror organization Lashkar-e-Toiba and was alleged to be in talks with the LeT to assassinate the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi. On Nov 23, 2005, Sohrabuddin was travelling in a bus with his wife Kauser Bi and was nabbed by the Gujarat ATS. Three days later, he was allegedly killed in a fake encounter at the behest of now BJP chief Amit Shah, who was then the MoS, Home, Gujarat.

This high-profile case was being heard by Justice Brijgopal Harikishan Loya. He was presiding over the CBI Special Court in Mumbai. Justice Loya died in the early hours of Dec 1, 2014 during a trip to Nagpur to attend the wedding of a colleague’s daughter. He experienced some health issues at around 4 am and was taken to Dande Hospital, which is around 3 km away from the guesthouse Loya was staying in. Dr PG Dande, the owner of the hospital has confirmed that Justice Loya was alive when he was brought in, an ECG test was done, where a T spike was observed and Justice Loya was advised to go to Meditrina, a speciality heart clinic. Justice Loya was declared dead on arrival at Meditrina. His post mortem was done, and the report confirmed that Justice Loya had indeed died of a heart attack. After 3 years, just on the occasion of the high-profile Gujarat elections, we have a report in Caravan stating that Justice Loya’s father and sister suspect foul play in his death and want a probe to be reopened. Justice Loya’s son Anuj was however quick to state that he was convinced there was no foul play and Justice Loya had died a natural death. Clearly, this was another attempt by Caravan to project Amit Shah as a criminal before the all-crucial Gujarat elections.

The Wire and Caravan are managed by Siddharth Varadarajan and Hartosh Singh Bal respectively, two rabid Modi haters, who would go to any extent to wipe out Modi and Amit Shah from the realms of Indian Politics and have the Congress back to power. They are indeed trying their best to turn the tide in Congress’ favor with such supposedly explosive but shoddy exposes. Unfortunately for them, the Indians have seen through their nefarious intentions and they are unlikely to cause any noticeable impact. Last but not least, one wonders why such a hue and cry is always raised when a terrorist or a dreaded criminal like Sohrabuddin is killed. Even if the likes of Sohrabuddin and Ishrat Jahan have been killed in fake encounters, one must take heart from the fact that they have been eliminated and India will have to deal with two criminals less.