This story is from July 9, 2020

Gujarat custodial death: Six accused cops go missing after FIR

Six policemen accused of torturing to death a 62-year-old bedsheets seller from Ahmedabad have gone missing after an FIR was lodged against them on Monday night.
Gujarat custodial death: Six accused cops go missing after FIR
Fatehgunj police station
VADODARA: Six policemen accused of torturing to death a 62-year-old bedsheets seller from Ahmedabad have gone missing after an FIR was lodged against them on Monday night.
The city police have formed four teams to track down the accused cops identified as police inspector, Dharmendrasinh Gohil, PSI Dasrath Rabari and LRD jawans - Pankaj Mavjibhai, Yogendrasinh Jeelansinh, Rajesh Savjibhai and Hitesh Shambhubhai.

Gohil and Rabari got transferred to Ahmedabad some days ago. The LRD jawans, who were staying in the police lines with their families, have locked their homes and disappeared. All the four jawans were suspended on Wednesday.
City police commissioner Anupam Singh Gahlaut said he has written to the Ahmedabad police to act against Gohil and Rabari. There is no trace of the victim Sheikh Babu Nishar’s body even as he died after being allegedly tortured in Fatehgunj police station on December 10 last year. However, in the FIR, police have invoked section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and not section 302 (murder), disappearance of evidence, destruction of evidence and giving false information.
“All the accused cops have been maintaining that they are innocent. During inquiry too, they said that they have no idea about the whereabouts of the victim. If they refuse permission for narco tests, it will go against them,” Gahlaut told TOI.
Investigators claim to have made efforts to trace Nishar and a team of cops even visited his native Hyderabad to get some clues.
On December 10, 2019, Nishar had come to the city and parted with his son-in-law Ibrahim Khan Pathan outside Vadodara central bus depot. They were to meet again within few hours but Nishar never turned up. The family searched him for a month and then filed a missing persons complaint at Sayajigunj police station. FIR states that he was tied to the chair with a belt, thrashed and a pen was pierced between his fingers even as he kept wailing that he was innocent.
Nishar’s family had approached the Gujarat high court that ordered the city police to probe into his disappearance and submit a report. During the probe, it was revealed through CCTV footage and eye-witness accounts that Nishar did enter Fatehgunj police station but there was no evidence of him leaving the premises.
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