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Journalism of Courage
A SESSIONS court on Wednesday rejected an application filed by the mother of Khwaja Yunus to add four policemen as accused for his alleged custodial death. The court also allowed the withdrawal of an application filed by the prosecution to add the four as accused.
Currently, four policemen are facing trial for the custodial death of Yunus in 2003. In 2018, the then special public prosecutor (SPP), Dhiraj Mirajkar, had filed a plea seeking addition of four more policemen as accused after the deposition of the first witness. The four were retired personnel ACP Praful Bhosale, and senior police inspectors Rajaram Vhanmane, Hemant Desai, and serving policeman Ashok Khot. The witness had named the four policemen, claiming that they had assaulted Yunus. Mirajkar was then sacked by the state government for moving the application and the court had kept the application to add them in abeyance.
This year, the state appointed Pradip Gharat as the new SPP who then filed an application that the state wanted to withdraw Mirajkar’s application. He said the Bombay High Court had rejected Yunus’ mother, Asiya Begum’s plea challenging the lack of sanction to prosecute the four policemen and others. The appeal against it was pending before the SC and, hence, the issue of whether they can be added as accused could not be decided till the outcome of the plea. The sessions court on Wednesday allowed for the withdrawal of the prosecution’s plea.
During the last hearing on August 25, Begum also filed a separate application to make the four policemen accused, citing the prosecution’s stand to withdraw the application. The plea was rejected by the court on Wednesday.
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