Khwaja YunusTHE CID has told a sessions court that it wants to withdraw a plea filed by its former prosecutor to make four policemen stand trial for the alleged custodial death of Khwaja Yunus. Dhiraj Mirajkar, the former special public prosecutor of the case, was sacked in 2018 after he had moved an application to make four policemen accused in the case based on the testimony of a prime witness, who had claimed that the four had brutally assaulted Yunus in 2003.
Special public prosecutor Pradip Gharat, who replaced Mirajkar, told the court on Wednesday that there was no sanction to prosecute the four policemen sought to be added as accused and hence the plea cannot be sustained. He further submitted that the HC had held that the competent authority’s decision to not grant sanction to prosecute the four policemen is proper. The four are retired ACP Praful Bhosale, Rajaram Vhanmane, Ashok Khot, and Hemant Desai.
SPP Gharat told the court that he will be making a written submissions on the withdrawal of the application. Reading out the 2012 HC order, Gharat submitted that the court had observed that the sanctioning authority’s decision was based on statements of witnesses and other evidence. The four policemen were not members of the team investigating the case and were only providing assistance to arrest the accused.
Yunus, a 27-year old software engineer from Parbhani, was arrested by the Mumbai Police in December 2002 for his alleged role in the Ghatkopar bomb blast earlier that month.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
First published on: 04-08-2022 at 01:46:53 am