The GujaratPolice Department is the law enforcement agency for the state of Gujarat in India. The Gujarat Police has its headquarters in Gandhinagar, the state capital. The Gujarat Police Department came into existence after Gujarat's separation from the Greater Mumbai state on 1 May 1960. The Gujarat Police Department is headed by . It has four Commissioners' offices : Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Surat. There are nine ranges in the Gujarat Police: Ahmedabad, Surat, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Rajkot, Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Dahod-Panchmahal and Border Range. For police administration the state is further divided into 33 police districts and Western Railway Police. Gujarat Police was the first state police department to crack the serial bomb blast mystery during 2007–08 in many Indian cities including
Politicization of the Gujarat Police
In the years following the 2002 Godhra Riots, the Gujarat police is widely perceived as having become "extraordinarily politicized" Up to 2013, there were an unprecedented total of 32 police officers, including six IPS officers who were in jail for the cold-blooded killing of a dozen people in staged "encounters". On 24 April 2007, DIG Rajnish Rai of Gujarat Police, who was investigating the Sohrabuddin Sheikh murder case, arrested three senior police officers: D G Vanzara, S Pandian Rajkumar and Dinesh MN. Vanzara was charged as the key executor of the extrajudicial killings. As a DIG, he had been promoted as head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, normally an IG post. The deputy home minister under Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, has been indicted as the "kingpin and prime accused" in the Tulsiram Prajapati murder case. Modi himself held the portfolio for Home. The BJP minister from Rajasthan, Gulab Chand Kataria has also been charged in the Prajapati murder. In September 2013, D. G. Vanzara accused Amit Shah and Narendra Modi of having given the orders to eliminate four people, including Tulsiram Prajapati. In Vanzara's words: In the Ishrat Jahan case too, Vanzara has allegedly named direct approval from the highest levels
Rebuke from courts
The Supreme Court has pulled up the standards of policing in Gujarat in a number of cases. In the Bilkis Banomass rape and murder case, the Supreme Court observed gross "negligence on the part of the local police" and handed the case to CBI. The CBI discovered that the police had buried several bodies with salt so they might disintegrate faster. Several police personnel were convicted along with the eleven rapists. In the Naroda Patiya massacre, the Supreme court scolded the Gujarat police for not arresting several accused. Subsequently, Modi minister Maya Kodnani was sentenced to 28 years for complicity in the massacre Meanwhile, police officers such as Sanjiv Bhatt, Rajnish Rai and R. B. Sreekumar, Rahul Sharma were penalized for doing their jobs. According to ex Director General of Police, RB Sreekumar, the Gujarat police is in the grip of "Modi-phobia". Another ex-DGP, R N Bhattacharya, has suggested that Gujarat police may have been compliant with Muslim killings during the riots.
