A special CBI court on Tuesday discharged another accused policeman from the 2003 encounter killing of 19-year-old Sadiq Jamal Mehtar, making him the fifth accused to have been dropped from the case without facing trial.
The court, however, rejected the discharge application of a co-accused on the ground of him being charged with shooting at Mehtar.
The special judge D A Vora granted relief to policeman (retd) Ghanshyam H Gohil, on the grounds of parity with other policemen who have already been discharged, while the court refused to discharge co-accused Irshad Ali Saiyed. The court said that Saiyed was accused as one of the firers.
The CBI had filed the chargesheet against eight cops ten years ago in December 2012. Their investigation revealed that on January 12, 2003, eight policemen posted with the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) killed Mehtar, a resident of Bhavnagar, in a staged encounter. The probe established that accused policemen branded Mehtar as a terrorist on a mission to kill the then CM Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders to avenge the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
The central agency was expected to continue its investigation to probe the role of senior officers on whose behalf the encounter was executed, but even after ten years, the agency hasn't filed any supplementary charge sheet.
Meanwhile, over the past ten years, the court discharged five accused, including key accused "encounter specialist" ex-DSP Tarun Barot. The other three are — Chhtrasinh Chudasama, R L Mavani and Ajaypal Yadav.
Published 20 December 2022, 21:32 IST