Yunus case: Court keeps decision on adding accused in abeyance

A Mumbai court today kept its decision on an application filed by the Maharashtra CID seeking to make some police officials accused in the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case "in abeyance".

Additional Sessions Judge V S Padalkar said he was keeping the decision in abeyance till the Supreme Court gives its ruling on a special leave petition in connection with the case.

"Decision on whether accused could be added in the case cannot be taken now as the matter is pending in the Supreme Court," he said.

The judge also fixed May 21 as the date for recording of evidence in the case.

Earlier this month, the Bombay High Court had rejected a petition by Aasiya Begum seeking prosecution of more police officers for the alleged custodial death of her son, Khwaja Yunus, in 2003.

Aasiya Begum then moved the apex court.

A Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inquiry had indicted 14 policemen for being responsible for the custodial death of Yunus, but the state government sanctioned prosecution of only four officers -- Sachin Waze, Rajendra Tiwari, Rajaram Nikam and Sunil Desai -- for murder.

Yunus, a software engineer working in Dubai, was arrested by the police when he was visiting home for his alleged involvement in a bomb blast in a bus outside suburban Ghatkopar station here on December 2, 2002, which had claimed two lives.

In January 2003, the police claimed that Yunus escaped while being taken to Aurangabad when the police jeep met with an accident. But the CID probe found that this was a concocted story, and Yunus had died due to custodial torture.