Khwaja Yunus custodial death: Prosecution to withdraw plea seeking to make four more cops accused

Representative image.

The prosecution will not pursue its plea seeking to make four more policemen accused in the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case, it told the trial court here on Wednesday.

Former assistant police inspector Sachin Waze and three other policemen are already facing trial in the case.

Yunus, a 27-year-old software engineer, was arrested following a bomb blast on December 2, 2002 at Ghatkopar railway station here in which two persons were killed.

He died in police custody, allegedly due to torture, in January 2003.

Also Read: Khwaja Yunus custodial death: Ex-special public prosecutor questions state govt's motive

Special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat on Wednesday told the court that the prosecution would not press its application to make four more policemen accused.
It was not maintainable as there was no sanction to prosecute them, he said.

The prosecution will withdraw the plea at the next hearing, Gharat added.

An inquiry into Yunus's death had indicted 14 policemen, but the government-sanctioned the prosecution of only four of them.

In April 2018, then prosecutor Dhiraj Mirajkar filed a plea seeking that summonses be issued to retired police officer Praful Bhosale and three other policemen and they be made accused.

The application was filed after key prosecution witness, Mohammed Abdul Mateen, told the court that he had seen Bhosale, then assistant police inspector Hemant Desai and two other policemen assault Yunus in police lock-up.

The government cancelled Mirajkar's appointment as special public prosecutor in the same month.

Mateen, a co-accused in the blast case who was later acquitted of all charges, had told the court that Yunus was brutally assaulted by four police officials of Ghatkopar Crime Branch which led to his death.

Police had claimed that he escaped after the police vehicle in which he was being taken met with an accident near Aurangabad in central Maharashtra.

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