A Central Bureau of Investigation court here on Saturday convicted Himachal Pradesh Inspector General of Police Zahur Haider Zaidi and seven others for the custodial death of an accused in gangrape and murder of a minor school girl in Himachal Pradesh’s Kotkhai in 2017.
The other accused who have been convicted include the then DSP Manoj Joshi, SI Rajinder Singh, ASI Deep Chand Sharma, HHC Mohan Lal, HHC Surat Singh, HC Rafee Mohammad and constable Ranit Sateta.
The court has acquitted former SP DW Negi.
The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence on January 27.
A 16-year-old girl had gone missing in Kotkhai on July 4, 2017 and her body was found from the forests two days later on July 6. The post-mortem report had confirmed rape and murder and a case was registered.
Amid a huge public outcry in the state, a Special Investigating Team (SIT) headed by Zaidi was constituted by the then government.
The SIT arrested six persons, and after the custodial death of one of the accused Suraj, the Himachal Pradesh High Court had handed over the investigations of both the cases to the CBI.
Suraj died on the night of July 18, 2017 at Kotkhai police station in Shimla.
After registering the case on July 22, 2027, the CBI had arrested Zaidi, and other policemen in connection with the custodial death.
The Supreme Court in 2019 transferred the case related to alleged custodial death of an accused from Shimla to Chandigarh.
The apex court transferred the case on a plea filed by the CBI for expeditious disposal of the case.
After investigation, the CBI filed the chargesheet against the accused. Finding prima facie case, charges were framed against the accused to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.
CBI’s public prosecutor Amit Jindal claimed that all the accused arrested Suraj Singh and seven others and caused hurt and grievous injuries to them to extort confession and fabricating false evidence.
Rabindra Pandit and Siddhant Pandit, counsels for former SP Negi, argued that he had no role in the crime.
After hearing the arguments, the court convicted eight accused in the case. The prosecution has examined over 52 witnesses in the case.
Accused submitted false reports, claims CBI
CBI claims that the accused destroyed the evidence relating to the death of Suraj Singh. They submitted false and fabricated reports to the DGP that Suraj Singh was killed by Rajinder alias Raju in police lockup.
The medical reports also indicated over 20 injuries on the body of the deceased. Another report of the board of AIIMS doctors confirmed the torture inflicted upon the deceased.
CBI claimed that Zaidi, submitted a report to Himachal Pradesh DGP regarding the incident of death of accused in police custody. He deliberately concealed the facts disclosed to him by Ct Dinesh and submitted a false report to DGP.
