Senior Indian Police Service officer Zahur Haider Zaidi , posted as Inspector General of Police in Himachal Pradesh, and 7 other policemen have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chandigarh court. These police personnel were found responsible for the death of a man named Suraj in police custody. Suraj was arrested in the case of gang rape and murder of a minor girl.
Seven year old, this incident is related to a case that was registered at Kotkhai police station in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh and was later investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The case trial was going on in the CBI special court in Chandigarh and the verdict was pronounced by Judge Alka Malik on Monday. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on the guilty police personnel.
Special court judge Alka Malik said, “Custodial violence is a matter of great concern in a civilized society and custodial death is perhaps one of the worst crimes in a civilized society governed by the rule of law.” The court said, “Despite constitutional and statutory provisions aimed at protecting the personal liberty and life of the citizen, the increasing incidents of torture and death in police custody show that the worst violation of human rights is still happening, that too at the hands of law enforcement agencies, as has happened in this case.”
On January 18, the court convicted Himachal Pradesh Police IG Zahur Haider Zaidi (55 years), then Deputy Superintendent of Police Manoj Joshi (42 years), Sub-Inspector Rajinder Singh (38 years), Assistant Sub-Inspector Deep Chand Sharma (59 years), Head Constable Mohan Lal (58 years), Surat Singh (50 years), Rafi Mohammad (43 years) and Constable Ranjit Sateta (37 years). However, the court has acquitted the then Superintendent of Police (SP) D W Negi in this case.
The above police personnel were convicted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 302 (murder) read with 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 330 (causing hurt to extract confession), 348 (wrongful confinement to extract confession), 195 (giving false evidence), 196 (using false evidence), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 218 (making false records).
This is how the investigation was done:
The case dates back to July 4, 2017, when a minor girl student went missing after school in Shimla district. Two days later, her body was recovered from a nearby forest. The post-mortem confirmed rape and murder.
Following the public outrage over the case, the Himachal Pradesh government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by IPS Zahur Haider Zaidi on July 13, 2017. The SIT arrested five suspects, including Suraj Singh. But Suraj died in police custody on July 18, 2017 at Kotkhai police station in Shimla district. The Himachal Pradesh Police initially claimed that Suraj died in a scuffle with another accused in the lockup.
The Himachal Pradesh High Court later assigned the CBI the task of investigating both the cases, the rape and murder of the student and the custodial death of Suraj. The CBI registered the case on July 22, 2017 and later arrested 1994 batch IPS officer Zahur Haider Zaidi, DSP Joshi and other accused policemen.
This is how the case proceeded:
According to the CBI investigation, Suraj was pressured to confess to the crime and was tortured. As a result, he suffered fatal injuries. A medical board concluded that more than 20 injuries on his body were caused by a blunt, cylindrical object such as a lathi or Belan . A medical board of AIIMS also confirmed the findings of torture. In November 2018, the accused filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the case out of Shimla. The CBI also argued in favour of transfer of the trial, citing delays and concerns of Zahur Haider Zaidi influencing witnesses. In May 2019, the Supreme Court granted bail to IPS Zaidi and transferred the custodial death case to the Chandigarh CBI court for hearing.