Today, Delhi court awarded life imprisonment to 17 policemen as they were convicted in killing a 22-year-old MBA student in a staged shootout in Dehradun in 2009 .However, CBI had requested for death penalty for the convicted policemen saying they behaved in a “predatory manner” demanding capital punsihment. CBI counsel and senior public prosecutor said, “Police should have protected law but adversely behaved in a predatory manner. They could have given protection to the victim student, but killed him in a fake encounter .”He further added harsh punishment to the guilty policemen will send a strong message, and “no public person in future can even think of doing such crimes”.
The 18 convicted policemen are then inspector Santosh Jaiswal, sub-inspectors Gopal Dutt Bhatt, Rajesh Bisht, Neeraj Kumar, Nitin Chauhan and Chandra Mohan, constables Ajit Singh, Satbir Singh, Sunil Saini, Chander Pal, Saurabh Nautiyal, Nagendra Nath, Vikas Chandra Baluni, Sanjay Rawat, Mohan Singh Rana, Inder Bhan Singh and Manoj Kumar and Jaspal Singh Gossain.Of them, 17 accused were convicted for murder, for conspiring to murder and one was convicted for framing incorrect record.
Gossain, the head operator at the city control room, was convicted under section 218 of the IPC (public servant framing incorrect record).He was left off Friday after he furnished a bail bond as he was only convicted for fabrication of evidence and had already undergone what could have been the maximum jail term for the offence.Meanwhile, the court asked police to provide “high security” to the policemen during transit between jail and court after it was informed by the Tis Hazari lock-up in-charge that there may be trouble.
The trial was transferred from Dehradun to Delhi on the orders of the Supreme Court on a plea by Ranbir’s father Ravindra Singh.
