By posing as Maithili Tyagi, a US based film-maker and a student of the American Film Institute subscribing to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's ideology, Ayyub managed to get access to senior police officers, bureaucrats, and politicians in Gujarat.

[1][2][3][4][5] According to a September 2016 column by Priya Ramani in Mint, Gujarat Files has become a bestseller with Ayyub managing to sell 32,000 copies of her book.

In a July 2016 interview in Frontline, Ayyub claimed that she called bookshops in Mumbai and Ahmedabad pretending to be a reader looking to buy Gujarat Files.

"[8] Vijayan quotes Justice Brandeis of the US Supreme Court: "If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”[8] According to Vijayan, the book contains incriminating information against Amit Shah and Narendra Modi; and the information that dalit and lower caste police officers in Gujarat were co-opted and made instruments of state violence.

Senior police officers are aware of the questionable legality of encounters, but they seem to accept these as part of their job; their regret is over details (such as there was no need to kill Kausar Bi), and not over the practice itself.

Human rights groups have long criticized extra-judicial executions in India, and “encounter” is a euphemism for illegal murders carried out by the state.

[10] Reflecting on the procedure used by Ayyub in composing Gujarat Files, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay has observed: "Going undercover and interviewing many who had been in the thick of gruesome extra-constitutional operations required bravado and this must be appreciated.

The book also accuses Amit Shah "of allegedly masterminding the Gujarat riots as well as ordering the killing of a terrorist Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife or live-in partner Kausar Bi and his associate Tulsiram Prajapati, "according to Malhotra.

[11] "If these transcripts are validated, they could present serious legal and ethical repercussions about Shah’s use of the State police force as his personal assassination squad and the bureaucracy as his fief," writes Suchitra Vijayan.

Ayyub’s repeated suggestion that mainstream media has blacked out her book – most print publications, at least, seem to have reviewed it within a fortnight of the launch, an honour normally reserved for the likes of Amartya Sen – has contributed to the conspiracy theories besides bolstering the author’s reputation as a fearless journalist.

[12] In the Haren Pandya murder case, the Supreme Court of India dismissed Rana Ayyub's book, stating that "it is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value.