Kotkhai case: Govt nod to prosecute SIT members

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 21

The state government has given the go-ahead to prosecute eight police officials, including suspended Inspector General of Police Zahur H Zaidi, in the custodial death of Suraj, an accused in the rape and murder of a minor Kotkhai girl.

Officials in the Home Department confirmed that permission had been granted to prosecute the members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which had been assigned the task of probing the rape and murder case which had shook the state when the body of a minor girl was recovered from Halaila forest in Kotkhai on July 6 last year. The girl had gone missing on July 4 while returning from school.

It was following the nod from Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur that prosecution sanction has been granted after some delay. The CBI has already filed a charge-sheet in court against the eight police officials in the custodial death. Besides Zaidi, who headed the SIT, the others who will face action now include DW Negi, who was Superintendent of Police, Shimla, and Deputy Superintendent of Police Manoj Joshi, who was posted in Theog. The state government had initially turned down the plea of the CBI seeking prosecution sanction and had sought certain queries from the premiere investigation agency, which is probing the case.

Even though the main rape and murder case is still being probed by the CBI, the SIT has been accused of custodial death of Suraj Singh, a Nepalese who had been booked along with five others for the crime. He died while in police custody in the Kotkhai police station on the intervening night of July 18 and 19 last year. The police had claimed that he had been killed by another accused in the case while being lodged in the same cell in the Kotkhai police station.

The BJP, while in the opposition, had made deteriorating law and order and safety of women their poll issue. It had accused the Virbhadra-led Congress regime of failing to provide a safe environment, especially to women, and also failing to ensure law and order in the otherwise peaceful state.

Following the custodial death of Suraj, people had gone on a rampage and burnt the Kotkhai police station and some vehicles while giving vent to their anger against the police inaction. Under pressure over the inept handling of the case by the police, the Congress government had handed over the case to the CBI.