Senior Himachal Officer, 7 Cops Convicted In Custodial Death Of Rape-Murder Accused

A Special CBI court in Chandigarh on Saturday convicted the Himachal Pradesh Inspector General of Police and seven other policemen in the custodial death of an accused in the gang rape and murder of a minor girl in Himachal Pradesh's Kotkhai in 2017.

The court of special judge Alka Malik will pronounce the quantum of punishment on January 27.

The CBI court convicted IG Zahur Haider Zaidi, the then deputy superintendent of police Manoj Joshi, then Sub-Inspector Rajinder Singh, then Assistant SI Deep Chand Sharma, then head constable Mohan Lal, Surat Singh, Rafee Mohammad and then constable Ranjit Sateta.

The court acquitted the then Superintendent of Police DW Negi, his counsel Rabindra Pandit said.

The accused have been convicted under various sections, including 302 (murder) read with 120-B, 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession), 348 (wrongful confinement to extract confession) and 195 (giving false evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, said CBI public prosecutor Amit Jindal.

Zaidi and seven others were arrested in the custodial death case of Suraj who was found dead at the Kotkhai police station on July 18, 2017.

A 16-year-old girl went missing in Kotkhai on July 4, 2017, and her body was found in the Halaila forests two days later on July 6.

The post-mortem report confirmed rape and murder and a case was registered.

Amid a huge public outcry in the state, a Special Investigation Team headed by Zaidi was constituted by the then-state government.

The SIT arrested six persons. The police officials registered an FIR against one Rajinder (accused in the gang rape case) for Suraj's murder.

The Himachal Pradesh High Court handed over the investigations of both cases to the CBI.

The CBI then arrested Zaidi, DCP Joshi and other policemen in connection with the custodial death.

The CBI charge-sheeted the accused police officials after a thorough investigation for criminal conspiracy, murder, fabrication of false evidence, destruction of evidence, torture in police custody for extracting confession, preparation of false record etc.

Later, the Supreme Court transferred the case related to the custodial death from Shimla to Chandigarh in May 2019. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)