The Bombay High Court on Monday allowed a plea related to the custodial death of 22-year-old Altaf Kadir Shaikh at Ghatkopar police station in September 2009, and directed that murder charges be framed against the three accused police men under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The court which asked the three accused cops to appear before the trial court on 24 April, directed that the trial be concluded within a year, Indian Express reported.
Altaf Kadir Shaikh died at the police station on 11 September, 2009, hours after he was picked up as a suspect in a case of house break-in.
The police officials are then police sub-inspector Sanjay Khedekar, head constable Raghunath Kolekar and police naik Sayaji Thombre of Ghatkopar police station.
The verdict passed in a plea by Mehrunnisa Kadir Shaikh, Altaf’s mother, filed in 2019, seeking to quash and set aside an order by a special CBI judge on January 3, 2018.
Mehrunnisa said that the Special CBI Court order was “contrary to law and evidence on record” as conduct of the three policemen was “suspicious” from inception.
She claimed that despite court directions, CBI had “erroneously dropped” the murder charges in the case of custodial death.
The Bombay HC had made several observations regarding conduct of cops, and held that prima facie the death of Altaf had taken place in the police station “as a result of torture”.