The Hindu : New Delhi News : Court calls police bluff

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 16, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

New Delhi

New Delhi

Court calls police bluff

Staff Reporter

“Man framed in fatal accident case had actually taken the injured victim to hospital”

Incident took place at Inderpuri in 1989
‘Police officer was trying to nail the accused to impress his bosses’

NEW DELHI: A court here has called the bluff of the Delhi police in a fatal accident case in which they had framed a man on the basis of a manufactured statement of the victim and planted eyewitnesses at Inderpuri in South-West Delhi in 1989.

The accused in the case suffered mental and physical agony for 17 long years due to the overzealousness of the investigating officer in the case to find an accused by hook or crook to be in the good books of his bosses.

The most bizarre part of the case is that the post-mortem report showed that the victim, Sheikh Azibul Khan, had died on December 2, 1989, while his statement which the investigating officer had filed along with the charge-sheet charging the accused, Birender Dutt, of knocking him down showed that it was recorded on November 20, 1990.

The case of the prosecution was that the accused had hit Khan while driving his cab on November 15, 1989. The victim was rushed to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on December 2.

Counsel for the accused, Kishan Nautiyal, opposed the charges submitting that the police had framed his client in the case. He submitted that the story of the incident was just opposite to what had been submitted before the court.

He said Birender Dutt had rather taken Khan to the hospital when he had found him lying injured on the road. The passengers in his cab, two Russian engineers working in the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation, were also witness to it.

Actually it was at their insistence that the accused had taken Khan to the hospital, Mr. Nautiyal submitted.

Acquitting the accused, Metropolitan Magistrate Kuldeep Narayan observed: “The investigation was pathetic and the witnesses were planted.”

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi