A key witness in the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case today told a sessions court here that he had seen senior police officer Praful Bhosale, now retired, and another officer assaulting Yunus in police lock-up.
Four police officials - Sachin Waze, Rajendra Tiwari, Rajaram Nikam and Sunil Desai - are facing trial on the charges of murder, voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extort confession, fabricating evidence and criminal conspiracy in the case.
Twenty-seven-year-old Yunus was allegedly detained soon after the December 2002 Ghatkopar bomb blast case.
While the police claimed that he escaped when he was being taken to Aurangabad for questioning, a CID inquiry ordered by the high court on a petition filed by his father revealed that he had died in police custody.
The inquiry had indicted 14 policemen, but the government sanctioned prosecution for only four, who are on trial.
Trial in the case began in May last year.
The court today recorded the evidence of the prosecution's prime witness Mohammed Abdul Mateen.
Mateen told the court that he was detained by the city police for his alleged involvement in the 2002 Ghatkopar bomb blast case along with Yunus and one other.
"Yunus was kept in a lock-up and I was made to sit near the passage way. I heard Yunus screaming and crying and I could hear him being hit with a belt," Mateen said in his evidence.
He added that when he was taken inside the lock up later, he saw two police officers sitting near Yunus, whose hands were tied and was stripped to his underwear.
"I know the police officers, who assaulted Khwaja Yunus. They are - Praful Bhosale and Hemant Desai. They assaulted Yunus on his chest and abdomen," Mateen said in his deposition today.
He told the court that he came to know the names of these officers when they used to come to court earlier during his trial.
Bhosale was the senior inspector of Ghatkopar police at that time and was also indicted by the CID in its inquiry. The government had refused permission to prosecute him.
The court will continue recording Mateen's evidence on February 12.
While Mateen was accused in the Ghatkopar blast case, a special court acquitted him in 2005.
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