Gujarat's Bharatiya Janata Party-run Narendra Modi government, notorious for its scant respect for legality, was forced to admit to the killing once its own senior police officers investigated it, and concluded that three Indian Police Service officers, including D.G. Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh M.N., were guilty.

Other gruesome facts have since come to light. The same policemen also killed Shaikh's wife, Kausar Bi, and police informer Tulsiram Prajapati. The motive was to destroy evidence by eliminating the witnesses to Shaikh's detention.

This only increased the officers' culpability. Kausar Bi was reportedly raped, and poisoned to death. She was cremated in Vanzara's presence, and her ashes were scattered over his farm.

The BJP has tried to brazen out the episode by claiming that Shaikh had 60 criminal cases against him. However, Shaikh was never accused of terrorism. Nor does Indian law permit extra-judicial killings, no matter how grave the crime. Yet, the Gujarat government demands credit for arresting the IPS officers. It wants to resist a CBI inquiry.

It's a measure of the moral-political depths to which the BJP has sunk that it advances such arguments. If it thinks it can take shelter behind "patriotism" for fighting "terrorism," it's profoundly mistaken.

This episode raises several disturbing issues. It points to the continuing vitiation of Gujarat's climate five years after India's worst state-aided butchery of Muslims. It exposes the criminalisation and communalisation of its police, which alone explains why Vanzara became a celebrated "encounter specialist" and enjoyed impunity.

And it reveals a nexus between anti-terrorist operations and perverse forms of "patriotism."

Vanzara was politically close to both Gujarat Chief Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. He could commit any number of crimes, including using faked Andhra Pradesh car number-plates, abducting Shaikh from a Hyderabad-Sangli bus, and using a stolen motorcycle to stage an "encounter."

Vanzara is responsible for 13 "encounter" killings -- faked on the ground that "terrorists" were plotting to kill Mr Modi. Vanzara delighted in boasting that "the [Modi] government is ours", and that "there will be no evidence ... to ever nail us because I am smarter than the human rights people." Vanzara was so "well-connected" that he even got his brother, a forest officer, posted to Gujarat's Human Rights Commission, so that no complaints against him would see the light of day.

Vanzara comes from a dirt-poor, semi-nomadic tribal family. He was supported by his neighbours -- 60% of them Muslim -- through school. But he soon morphed into a viciously communal, crafty operator. He owns a 20-room three-storied mansion, and reportedly has investments exceed Rs 150 crores. His is a pathologically disturbed personality.

Yet, there's no way that Vanzara could have indulged in encounter killings without Mr Modi's support and collusion. They probably extended and accessed huge amounts of money to patronise informants.

Typically, such informants are hardened criminals keen to settle scores with their rivals. They exert a deeply corrosive influence on the police, and blur the line of demarcation between the police and criminals.

Anti-terrorist police, citing "secrecy," become a law unto themselves. That's the story of countless "encounter specialists" -- from Maharashtra (Praful Bhonsle and Daya Nayak), Delhi (Rajbir Singh), and elsewhere, who all stand disgraced for corruption, extortion and intimidation.

But a difference sets Vanzara aside. This difference is his repeated claim to deshbhakti, or love for the nation. Indeed, Vanzara turned deshbhakti into a synonym for fake encounters. He attached a sacred or mystical significance to his murderous ventures. The link between murder and an odious concept of nationalism constitutes the most frightening aspect of Vanzara's operations.

This concept of nationalism separates the nation from, indeed opposes it to, society and human rights. It justifies the snuffing out of life on mere suspicion. Surely, Vanzara knew that most of those whom he killed in "encounters" were not terrorists.

Vanzara probably concocted "plots" targeted at killing Mr. Modi -- to curry favour with his boss. Vanzara threatened many POTA detainees with "encounter deaths" unless they signed confessional statements.

This was established by two Gujarat families during a hearing on POTA, which I attended. Vanzara and those who shielded him must be given exemplary punishment. They must be prosecuted for direct and constructive responsibility.

It's not enough to punish the police alone; their political masters, too, must be brought to book. The prosecution must establish their communal bias, and secure severe punishment.

Indian courts must condemn the deshbhakti proposition, and enunciate a clear legal doctrine, which criminalises the equation of patriotism with murder. Far too many crimes have been committed against innocent citizens in the name of the nation, security and defence of the state.

These monstrous practices must end. Tolerance for them is unworthy of a society that aspires to democracy and human rights. Democracy loses its meaning if the most basic right, the right to life, is undermined.

A corollary of this is the abrogation of obnoxious laws like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and Disturbed Areas Act, which permit security forces to kill suspects, and also exempt them from prosecution.

India has seen such horrifying abuse in Kashmir. This is now evident in the Northeast and, increasingly, in anti-Naxal operations in the heart of India, staged by shady state-supported outfits like Salwa Judum in Chattisgarh.

A final word -- Gujarat has witnessed 21 "encounter" killings in the past three years. It's high time that the Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission ordered high-level inquiries into these, and returned to the virtually abandoned task of ensuring justice for the long-suffering victims of the Gujarat carnage.

They must stipulate a code of conduct for "anti-terrorist operations," and outlaw any abuse of state power. Nothing else will meet the ends of justice.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.