A month after he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in Jamnagar, sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has approached the Gujarat high court challenging his conviction in the 1990 custodial death case.
With Bhatt, retired constable Pravinsinh Zala was also convicted to life imprisonment. He filed an appeal against the trial court’s judgment on 17th July. His appeal was admitted by the high court.
On 20th June, a sessions court in Jamnagar held seven cops guilty. Besides Bhatt and Zala, five other cops were found guilty of custodial torture, and the court punished them with two years’ jail term.
The incident occurred on 30th October, 1990, when Jamjodhpur resident Prabhudas Vaishnani was detained along with 132 others by police during the Bharat bandh call given ahead of BJP veteran LK Advani’s rath yatra. Bhatt was the Jamnagar ASP then. After his detention, Vaishnani died during treatment of severe kidney damage on 18th November that year. Vaishnani’s brother, Amrut, filed a complaint after that.
In the complaint, Amrut said that his brother was beaten with rifle butts, asked to crawl on his elbows and made to do sit-ups. He was not given water or medical attention. Prabhudas’s kidney was damaged because of custodial torture. CID Crime, which probed the case, had concluded that Prabhudas Vaishnani had died because of “inhuman torture.”
At present, Bhatt is behind bars after his arrest in September last year in connection with a two-decade old alleged drug planting case in Palanpur.
Custodial death case : Ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt moves to Gujarat HC against conviction
