SC paves way for Khwaja Yunus case to move forward

Khwaja Yunus was last seen on January 7, 2003 by the men arrested with him

In a significant development in the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the sessions court conducting the trial can decide whether four more policemen can be named as additional accused. This crucial question has been kept pending for the past four years. The four cops are ACP (retired) "encounter specialist" Praful Bhosale, senior police inspector Rajaram Vhanmane and inspectors Hemant Desai and Ashok Khot.

The four cops were named by Dr Abdul Mateen, the first witness to have testified in the trial. Dr Mateen, who, like Khwaja Yunus, was an accused in the 2002 Ghatkopar Bomb Blast case, testified that he saw the four policemen torture 27-year-old Yunus till he vomited blood and collapsed at Ghatkopar Police station.

Mateen was acquitted like all the other 17 accused in the case in 2005.

A CID inquiry had held 14 cops responsible for Yunus's death, but the government had allowed prosecution of only four of them. Representation pic

Immediately after Mateen's cross-examination was over, the then Special Public Prosecutor Dhiraj Mirajkar filed an application urging that the four policemen be added as accused.

However, the lawyer for the four cops had opposed the application saying that a special leave petition was pending in the Supreme Court regarding the prosecution of these policemen. The court had then said it would wait for the decision of the Supreme Court to decide on the application.

On Thursday, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice Abhay S Oka directed the sessions court to proceed with deciding the application on its own merit without being influenced by the SLP pending in the Supreme Court, and asked it to hear the matter expeditiously.

This is one step forward in the tortuous route that the Khwaja Yunus case has followed. The 27-year-old IT engineer from Parbhani, arrested in connection with the Ghatkopar bomb blast case in which two persons were killed, was reported to have escaped while being taken to Aurangabad by the police on January 7, 2003, never to be seen again. A CID inquiry held 14 policemen responsible for his death.

However, the Maharashtra government allowed only four of these 14 to be prosecuted - then API Sachin Waze, and constables Rajendra Tiwari, Sunil Desai and Rajaram Nikam. Yunus was last seen in their custody, according to the charge sheet. The High Court upheld the decision.

In 2014, Khwaja Yunus' mother Asiya Begum filed an SLP in the Supreme Court against that decision, which has yet to come up for hearing.

Meanwhile, after many hiccups, including the resignation of two special PPs, the trial against the four accused cops started in the sessions court, Mumbai in January 2018.

After the testimony of Dr Mateen, Special PP Mirajkar moved an application to add as accused the four cops named by Mateen. However, Mirajkar was removed from the case immediately.

Since a 2014 High Court order says that all custodial death matters require a special PP to be appointed, Yunus' mother moved the High Court asking that Mirajkar be reinstated as Special PP. That matter is currently being heard. As a result, the trial in the sessions court has been at a standstill since April 2018.

In the interim, the original four accused cops facing trial, who had been suspended in 2004, were reinstated in June 2020, because, as per the Mumbai Police, they were short-staffed during the pandemic. Waze soon got embroiled in the Antilla case and is currently in jail.

Speaking to mid-day from Parbhani, Yunus' brother Khwaja Hussein welcomed the Supreme Court decision. However, he said, everything now depended on whether Mirajkar would be reinstated as Special PP.

7 Jan, 2003
Day Khwaja Yunus was last seen