The Rajasthan government has filed an appeal against the acquittal of the accused in the killing of Pehlu Khan in 2017. The appeal was filed on Monday in the Rajasthan High Court against the decision of a court in Alwar that acquitted all the six accused in the case.
Pehlu Khan was beaten to death in April 2017 allegedly by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes on suspicion of cow smuggling in Alwar district. The dairy farmer, whose beating was captured on a mobile phone video used by Rajasthan Police to identify his attackers, died of his injuries three days later in hospital.
However, a local court let off all the six accused in the case by giving them the benefit of doubt.
The appeal in the high court was filed after the Rajasthan government said it will re-examine the Pehlu Khan case and set up a Special Investigation Team or SIT in August to look into the police lapses in the investigation
The probe team had submitted its report to the Rajasthan police chief in the first week of September.
The SIT, in its 80-page report with over 100 annexures, details of which have not been made public, has found lapses at every stage in the polices investigation, according to sources.
The people Pehlu Khan named before dying were part of the first FIR (First Information Report) filed by the police.
But the state police's Criminal Investigation Department, which took over the investigation in July 2017, let off the six accused initially, saying that these six men are also not seen in photos or video footage of the attack and that their mobile phone records show they were about 2 km away during the attack.
On the basis of the video which showed Pehlu Khan being beaten, the police then named nine other men as responsible for his death.
But the court rejected this on the grounds that the police did not present in court the mobile phone with which the beating of the cattle trader was recorded, the most crucial evidence in the case.
The SIT has found that in a crucial lapse, the phone was seized by the police but not presented as material evidence in court.
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