CBI court awards life imprisonment to Himachal IG Zahur Haider Zaidi, 7 other cops in Kotkhai custodial death case

“In spite of constitutional and statutory provisions aimed at safeguarding the personal liberty and life of a citizen, growing incidents of torture and death in police custody show that there is still worst violation of human rights taking place, that too at the hands of law enforcement agencies, as in the instant case,” the court said.

On January 18, the court had convicted Zaidi (55), then Deputy Superintendent of Police Manoj Joshi (42), Sub-Inspector Rajinder Singh (38), Assistant SI Deep Chand Sharma (59), Head Constables Mohan Lal (58), Surat Singh (50), Rafee Mohammad (43) and Constable Ranjit Sateta (37). The court, however, acquitted the then Superintendent of Police D W Negi.

The police personnel were convicted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 302 (murder) read with 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession), 348 (wrongful confinement to extract confession), 195 (giving false evidence), 196 (using false evidence), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 218 (creating false records).

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on the police personnel.

The case dates back to July 4, 2017, when a minor girl went missing after school hours in Shimla district. Her body was found from a nearby forest two days later. The post-mortem confirmed rape and murder.

Following public outrage, the state government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by Zaidi on July 13, 2017. The SIT arrested five suspects, including Suraj Singh, who died in custody on July 18, 2017, at the Kotkhai police station in Shimla district. The police initially claimed that Suraj was killed in a scuffle with another accused in the lockup.

The Himachal Pradesh High Court later transferred both cases — the rape and murder of the girl and the custodial death of Suraj — to the CBI.

The CBI registered a case on July 22, 2017, and subsequently arrested Zaidi, a 1994-batch IPS officer, DCP Joshi and the other accused police personnel.

According to the CBI investigation, Suraj had been tortured to extract a confession, resulting in fatal injuries. A medical board concluded that over 20 injuries on his body were caused by a blunt, cylindrical object such as a lathi or baton. An AIIMS medical board also confirmed the findings of torture.

In November 2018, the accused moved the Supreme Court asking for the case to be transferred out of Shimla. The CBI also argued for the transfer, citing delays and concerns over Zaidi influencing witnesses. In May 2019, the Supreme Court granted Zaidi bail and transferred the custodial death case to the Chandigarh CBI Court for trial.