Special CBI court sentences three IAF officers to life imprisonment for custodial killing

Asserting that "custodial torture by law enforcement agencies is one of the worst kind of crimes," a special CBI court in Ahmedabad has convicted three Indian Air Force (IAF) officers guilty of killing a civilian cook and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The incident had occurred in 1995 when the convicts had tortured the victim to extract a confession in a case of theft of liquor bottles at Air Force canteen.

Special judge Nikhil D Doshi pronounced the judgement and held group captain Anoop Sood, sergeant Anil K N, both retired, and sergeant Mahendra Singh Sherawat, who is serving in Delhi, guilty of killing Girja Rawat, who was working as a cook in Air Force-1, Jamnagar, for 15 years.

The court awarded them life imprisonment while holding them guilty under sections 302 (murder), 331, 348 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extort confession and wrongful confinement to extort confession), to be read with criminal conspiracy section 120 B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

The court said, "The convicts are found guilty of having tortured the victim while he was in their custody after having conspired to extract confession from him. Custodial torture by law enforcing agencies is indeed one of the worst kind of crimes in a society governed by rule of law."

In November, 1995, in Jamnagar, the IAF officers had reported theft of 94 liquor bottles from CSD canteen. The court documents state that Air Commodore KC Phillipose, the then Air Officer Commanding of Air Force Station, had issued a search warrant in the name of J S Sidhu for conducting search at the residence of Rawat, who was working as a cook.

On November 13, 1995, "12 Air Force officials, different in rank, participated in the said search. During the said search, one broken glass bottle was seized from the outside compound of the residential quarter of Girja Rawat." Rawat was brought to Main Guard Room at the Air Force Station and was subjected to extreme torture for a confession.

A day later, his wife Shakuntala Devi was informed about his death. The post-mortem report revealed, "shock and hemorrhage on account of thoraco – abdominal injuries caused by hard and blunt object" as reasons behind his death. The FIR was filed against the officer on the basis of Shakuntala Devi's complaint with Jamnagar 'B' division police station.

The local police filed chargesheet against seven accused but she moved the high court for fresh investigation by the CBI. The high court handed over the probe to the central agency which filed chargesheet against eight persons, including the convicts.

One of the accused Mahabir Prasad died during the pendency while another accused Sidhu is absconding. Other accused including Satyendranath Chakrabarti, Nirmal Kumar Majumdar and Rajesh Singh kataria were acquitted on the ground of benefit of doubt. The court also ordered the district legal services authority to consider paying compensation to the victim's family.