Chandigarh, Jan 27 A CBI court here on Monday awarded life imprisonment to Himachal Pradesh Inspector General of Police Z.H. Zaidi and seven other police personnel for custodial death of an accused in the gangrape-murder of a schoolgirl in Shimla's Kotkhai in 2017 that triggered violent protests.
The other convicted police officials include then DSP Manoj Joshi, Sub-Inspector Rajinder Singh, Assistant Sub-Inspector Deep Chand Sharma, Head Constables Mohan Lal, Surat Singh and Rafee Mohammad and Constable Raneet Sateta.
Counsels for the convicts prayed for leniency on the basis of the age, family commitments and good service records of convicts. However, the court acquitted former Superintendent of Police D.W. Negi.
The court convicted them on January 18 and the quantum of the sentence was prounced on Monday.
The Supreme Court in 2019 transferred the case from Shimla to Chandigarh on a plea filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for expeditious disposal of the case.
The girl had gone missing in Kotkhai and her body was found in a forest near Kotkhai town in Shimla district on July 6, 2017, two days after her disappearance.
The crime had led to arson by a mob demanding justice for the girl. After the crime, police had claimed that the schoolgirl was offered a lift in a vehicle by one of the accused while she was returning home from school in Kotkhai town, 56 km from Shimla.
On the way, the accused and his accomplices gang-raped and murdered her in a nearby forest.
Her naked body with injury marks was found. Later, the Himachal Pradesh government agreed to recommend a CBI probe. After the CBI took over, nine police personnel, including Inspector General of Police Zaidi and former Shimla Superintendent of Police D.W. Negi, were arrested on the charge of custodial death of accused Suraj.
Zaidi was head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the case before the CBI took over. The SIT had arrested six persons, one of whom (Suraj) died at the Kotkhai police station on the night of July 18, 2017.
Zaidi and eight others were arrested in connection with the custodial death. The CBI, which arrested Nilu, said he was the lone accused while those arrested by the Himachal Police were not involved. Charges against them were dropped.
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