AHMEDABAD: After prisoner Pavankumar Bansidhar Sharma continued to claim mistaken identity following his arrest in a 33-year-old drug peddling case, a city sessions court ordered the Sabarmati Central Jail authority to verify if the recently-arrested prisoner is the original accused.
Pavankumar Bansidhar Sharma (54) has claimed that he is not Pavankumar Bansidhar Brahmin named in the case. Additional sessions judge D V Shah ordered the jailor to verify if Sharma has all the identification marks mentioned in the jail register on May 7, 1991, while releasing Pavankumar Bansidhar Brahmin from jail.
The jailor has been ordered to get a doctor for detailed verification of the marks – scars on his forehead, right side of his chest and right elbow, and a tattoo of Lord Hanuman on his wrist. The court also asked for photographs and his exact height. The court called for the information on Tuesday.
The development took place after Sharma continued to allege mistaken identity and asserted that he is not Brahmin, the original accused in the case. The court ordered verification after Karanj PSI R G Bharwad expressed uncertainty over the identity of the prisoner who was released on bail three decades ago.
When prisoner Sharma filed an application complaining about mistaken identity, the court inquired with PSI Bharwad, who had arrested Sharma on February 28 from Rajasthan. The cop told the court that his identity could be verified by comparing the thumb impression of the prisoner with the thumb impression of the original accused as given in the jail register. But on inquiry, it was found out that the original accused had put his signature on the jail register. The PSI also told the court that Sharma’s arrest was made on the basis of statements made by his relatives.
In this case, Pavankumar Brahmin was arrested with 15g of charas from the metropolitan court gate in 1987. He was released on bail from Sabarmati jail in 1991. The age mentioned in the chargesheet filed against Brahmin was 48 years. Brahmin disappeared after his release from jail.
Three decades later, the court issued a warrant and Karanj police sought to arrest Pavankumar Sharma, stating that he is the real accused. Sharma claimed that looking at the chargesheet papers, the real accused should be 80 years old. He had earlier sought anticipatory bail on this ground, but was denied legal protection after police told the court that it was a typo.