New Delhi:
One of the accused in the sensational Soumya Vishwanathan murder case has approached a court here alleging that he was beaten up for several days inside Rohini Jail for refusing to "bribe" prison authorities.
"The jail authorities at Rohini assaulted me for days after I refused to bribe them. They take money for providing facilities such as mobile phones and dry fruits inside," accused Amit Shukla told Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) S K Sarvaria.
A magisterial court had on June 25 asked the jail superintendent to get the accused examined at a government hospital within two days, defence counsel Amit Kumar said.
"However, in a blatant disrespect to a judicial order, which was passed more than a week ago, the jail authorities have not taken him to a hospital," the counsel said.
The court took note of the allegations by the accused and forwarded the complaint to Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja who will hear the case afresh on July 8.
Meanwhile, the ASJ heard part arguments on the bail plea of another accused Ajay Sethi and fixed it for further hearing on July 5. Public prosecutor Rajeev Mohan opposed the plea saying Sethi was involved in 26 criminal cases and had transacted nearly Rs 36 lakh in ill-gotten money.
Earlier, police had withdrawn their plea seeking more time to conclude probe under stringent MCOCA in the case and filed the chargesheet against four accused in the matter.
Police, which approached the court for 30 days more time to conclude the probe, filed the 489-page chargesheet the next day under section 3 of MCOCA against four accused - Ajay Sethi, Baljeet Singh Malik, Amit Shukla and Ajay Kumar.
Ravi Kapoor, along with Malik, Shukla and Ajay Kumar, had allegedly tailed the journalist and shot at her on the night of September 30, 2008, when she was returning home by her car from office at around 3:30 am. A chargesheet has already been filed against Kapoor, the main accused.
Initially, four accused, except Ajay Sethi, were booked under various provisions of the IPC related to murder, robbery, cheating and possession of stolen properties.
Sethi has been charged under a milder penal provision dealing with keeping stolen property.
Subsequently, they were booked under MCOCA after police claimed they were involved in several such cases including the murder of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh.