At a time when Sanskrit — mother of all Indo-Aryan languages — is reduced to a vanishing minority, two jailed top Gujarat cops in Ishrat Jahan encounter completed Sanskrit speaking course that too in Sabarmati Jail of Ahmedabad.
Senior Gujarat cadre IPS officers PP Pandey and DG Vanzara are putting serious efforts to contribute their bit to keep one of the most ancient languages of the world alive in its own country of origin. As per an estimate, there are hardly 15,000 people across a country of over 1.2 billion people, who really can speak good Sanskrit.Pandey and Vanzara participated in the course along with 250 other inmates of Sabarmati Jail, said Sukumar Trivedi, coordinator of Samskrita Bharati, an NGO which conducted the Sanskrit Speaking course for inmates.
Interestingly, Vanzara gave 30 minutes speech on the last day of the course. According to Trivedi, Pandey on the valedictory speech of the course said that Sanskrit connects hearts and a person who could speak the language well, can never commits any crime. He went on to say that the Sanskrit teaches human beings the spirit of universal brotherhood.It is worth mentioning that of the total Sanskrit speaking people in the country, over 90 per cent people are resident of two villages — Mattur in Karnataka and Jhiri in Madhya Pradesh. Villagers in these two villages are still speaking the ancient language in day-to-day life.
Pandey was arrested and sent behind the bars in August 2013 in the case of fake encounters of college girl Isharat Jahan and three others. He has sought for bail in the case on the ground that the investigation agency could not produce substantial evidence pertaining to his involvement in the encounter against him. He was Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) in Ahmedabad when the controversial encounter bid was carried out by the Gujarat cops.
On June 15, 2004 Ishrat Jahan and three others Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were gunned down by crime branch sleuths on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.The other senior cop jailed since April 2007, DG Vanzara has also been accused in two other encounter cases of Soharabuddin Sheikh and Tulsi Prajapati apart from Isharat Jahan and three others. Vanzara has got bail for Prajapati and Sheikh encounter cases but he is still in the jail for Isharat Jahan encounter case.