Six accused cops hiding in interior part of Gir forests

Vadodara: Over the last few days, a team of cops from the city has been camping in the interiors of Gir forests in Saurashtra region. Whenever they see any hutment in the deep jungle, they check it and move on to other human settlements hoping to catch hold of the six policemen accused in the custodial death case at Fatehgunj police station.
A senior police official said that the team has been trying hard to track the accused cops who have gone missing since nearly a month now.“We have information that the accused cops are hiding in Gir forest. They have been staying in cottages located deep in the forest. It is very difficult to track them and one has to trek to access these cottages,” said a senior police official.
“Our team is visiting the remotest areas of the forest, hoping to track down the accused, most of whom are from Saurashtra region,” the official told TOI. The police said that it had also intercepted some phone calls in the region and investigations revealed that the accused cops were camping in the Gir forest.
“The phone calls we tracked in Saurashtra region were made to the relatives of the accused cops. We contacted them to get further clues of the accused who have now started making internet calls. They make few calls and then switch off their phones,” the official added.
The six cops who were posted in Fatehgunj police station are accused of causing the custodial death of Sheikh Nishar Babu and then disposing of his body in December last year.
During the police inquiry, the accused including police inspector Dharmendrasinh Gohil’s who is from Palitana, PSI Dashrath Rabari from Kheda, LRD Yogendrasinh Jilansinh from Sabarkantha, Rajesh Savjibhai from Morbi, Pankaj Mavji from Amreli and Hitesh Shambhu from Bhavnagar maintained that Sheikh had left the police station.
But investigations revealed that Sheikh, who was detained over suspicion of theft, never left the police station. The city police filed a complaint of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the six cops last month but the Gujarat high court directed the police to add murder charges.
“We have got enough evidence against the accused cops and they will be held soon,” said Anupam Singh Gahlaut, the outgoing police commissioner.