Vadodara: Six accused cops remanded to 10 days’ custody

VADODARA: A local court remanded the six cops accused in custodial death to 10 days of police custody on Wednesday. CID (crime), Gandhinagar sleuths produced the accused cops in the court after they surrendered before the police on August 31. They were arrested after testing negative for Coronavirus test.
CID sleuths told the court that they want to question the accused cops to locate the body of Sheikh Nishar Babu who died in police custody at Fatehgunj police station. The remand application also stated that the cops want to ascertain what role was each accused cop played in causing death of Sheikh.
Investigators also want to find out who switched off the CCTVs on the day of the incident and if the accused cops used any weapon to torture and kill the victim. CID sleuths said in the remand application that the accused cops are well-versed with law and hence are not cooperating in the investigations.
All the accused cops, who were posted in Fatehgunj police station, had gone missing two months ago after they were booked for Sheikh’s custodial death. When the city police failed to track the accused, the case was handed over to CID (crime) last month.
Sheikh, who was picked up as a suspect in a theft case in December last year, had gone missing. He was brought to Fatehgunj police station but there was no evidence of him leaving the building. Sheikh’s son later filed a missing persons complaint in Sayajigunj police station.
During police inquiry, the accused including police inspector Dharmendrasinh Gohil’s who is from Palitana, PSI Dashrath Rabari from Kheda, LRD Yogendrasinh Jilansinh from Sabarkantha, Rajesh Savjibhai from Morbi, Pankaj Mavji from Amreli and Hitesh Shambhu from Bhavnagar maintained that Sheikh had left the police station.
But investigations done by an ACP-ranking officer revealed that Sheikh never left the police station. The city police filed a complaint of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the six cops in July, but the Gujarat high court later directed the police to add murder charges.