MUMBAI: Two more witnesses were declared hostile to the prosecution’s case in the trial of the case involving the killing of
Sohrabuddin Shaikh in an encounter that was allegedly faked, taking the total number of hostile witnesses to 44. So far, 62 prosecution witnesses have deposed since the trial began around six months ago.
The two witnesses were “panchas”, or “independent witnesses”, before who police record “all immediate details of a crime scene, including objects seized”. Witness 124, Nikunj Dalvadi, and witness 125, Kiran Panchal, were declared hostile after special CBI prosecutor B P Raju, who examined them, received answers denying that they knew the contents of the panchanama.
Panchal, 25 years old in 2010, a resident of Ahmedabad, had in a statement said that he and his friend were stopped by a police man in civil dress and told that police had killed Shaikh in an encounter and, since empty cartridges were to be seized, a panchanama had to be prepared. He had said they were taken to the ATS office at Dafnala where four officers came later and gave empty cartridges to a senior officer sitting there. He had said that he and Nikunj had signed the documents after finding it correctly recorded.
But in court, while deposing as prosecution witnesses before special CBI judge S J Sharma, the two did not stand by their statements. They said they had been told where to sign and refuted any knowledge of the content of the panchanama or that they had seen the cartridges.
But a third witness who deposed on Monday, IPS officer
E Radhakrishnaiah, was not declared hostile. His statement centred around how discharged accused
Gujarat IPS officer
Rajkumar Pandiyan had requested officer’s accommodation when he had visited Hyderabad in November 2005.
