Don’t prosecute us in Yunus case: Accused cops to court

Mumbai: Four policemen — who, according to the prosecution in the 2004 Khwaja Yunus case, should be made the accused — on Monday told the court that they should not be prosecuted in the case.

They said that the state government had already refused permission to the investigation agency and the high court had already dismissed similar petitions seeking to make them the accused in the case.

Yunus, a software engineer, was arrested by the Mumbai police in the 2002 Ghatkopar blasts case. He was allegedly murdered while in police custody.

The first prosecution witness in the trial — the then co-accused who was subsequently acquitted by the court — told the court on January 17 that he had seen four policemen i.e. Praful Bhosale (retired as assistant commissioner of police, crime branch); Rajaram Vhanmane (currently senior police inspector at Dindoshi police station); Ashok Khot; and

Hemant Desai assaulting Yunus on January 6, 2003. On February 8 this year, the prosecution filed an application in the trial court seeking that all four accused be prosecuted.

However, advocate Shubhash Jha, who appeared on behalf of the four policemen, filed an intervention application before the court saying that Asiya Sayed Khwaja Ayud, Yunus’ mother, in 2005 filed a petition challenging the state government’s decision not to prosecute these four policemen.

On January 1, 2008, the then joint secretary filed an affidavit in the high court in the case of Yunus’ mother and another PIL justifying the state’s decision.