The High Court of Bombay has sought a reply from the Bombay Police in a contempt plea against reinstatement of the 4 suspended policemen facing trial in the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case.
The bench was hearing a plea filed by the mother of Khwaja Yunus seeking issuance of contempt notice against the city police chief and the principal secretary of the Home department for violating the High Court’s 2004 order directing the state government to suspend the four policemen and to initiate an inquiry against them.
On December 25, 2002, Yunus who was an engineer working in Dubai, was arrested with three others under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, by the Mumbai Police which claimed that he was involved in a bomb blast in Ghatkopar on December 2 that year.
The four accused were interrogated by the police and Yunus was last seen by the three others on January 6, 2003, when it was said that he was being brutally assaulted by the police. Police however said that Yunus had escaped from custody.
When a petition was filed on behalf of Yunu’s family, a probe was ordered and the CID concluded that Yunus had not escaped from custody, but was killed.
The four policemen who were suspended in 2004 are facing trial on charges of murder and destruction of evidence.
The Police has been directed to file their reply within a period of 2 weeks.
-India Legal Bureau