Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday questioned the State over the post mortem (PM) report of Anuj Thapan, an accused in Salman Khan firing case who allegedly died by suicide in police custody.
A vacation bench of Justices NR Borkar and Somasekhar Sundaresan noted that the PM report did not include diagram of injuries like the ligature marks on Thapan’s neck. It also asked whether were any other injury marks.
Thapan was found hanging in the lock-up toilet of the Crime Branch at the Commissionerate Complex in Crawford Market on May 1. The police claimed that he used a bedsheet to take the extreme step. The court said that the report mentioned that as per the report, Thapan’s death was due to “asyphxiation”. “The same can be due to strangulation,” Justice Borkar remarked.
State advocate Jayesh Yagnik then shows a supplementary report to the bench which mentioned injury marks on Thapan’s body including the details of the ligature marks. Hence, the PM report was not incomplete, Yagnik said.
The Hc was hearing a petition by Thapan’s mother Rita Devi seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into her son’s death alleging that he was tortured in custody which related in his death. Yagnik submitted a preliminary report on the probe by the State CID into Thapan’s death.
The judges asked the prosecution to permit the mother to go through the report. On a court query, Yagnik said that a magistrate was probing the alleged custodial death and the inquiry was still ongoing.
Salman’s counsel Aabad Ponda sought deletion of the actor's name as respondent claiming that there were no allegations against him in the petition. Ponda submitted that his name in the petition was damaging his reputation and it claimed that he was responsible for the custodial death of the accused.
“The actor is in fact the victim here. Someone tried to attack him (Khan) and his house. He does not know who is behind the attacks and who have been arrested," Ponda said,” Ponda argued. Devi’s advocate said that they were not seeking any direction against the actor and agreed to delete his name as the respondent.
The court has asked the mother to add the State CID as respondent since it was probing the custodial death. Pursuant to HC direction of May 15, Yagnik informs that they have preserved the CCTV footage of the police station where Thapan was lodged and also the call data record (CDR) of the police station and police officers concerned.
On April 14, two motorcycle-borne men fired outside Galaxy Apartment in Bandra where Khan resides with his family. The alleged shooters - Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal - were later arrested from Gujarat. Thapan, along with his associate was apprehended from Punjab on April 26 on charges of supplying firearms and ammunition for the shooting. Police claimed he was allegedly associated with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. So far, six persons have been arrested in connection with the case and have been booked under the stringent MCOCA.
