10 cops booked for unnatural sex

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has charged 10 Wadala railway policemen with sections related to unnatural sex and abetment while saying it did not have evidence to invoke murder charges against them.  

The policemen were arrested by the agency in the case related to the death of Agnelo Valdaris (25) whose body was found at a railway track in April 2014.

The CBI on Monday informed the Bombay high court that it had invoked Sections 377 (unnatural sex) and 108 (abetment) of the Indian Penal Code against police officers who were arrested in the Wadala custodial death case.

The CBI also told the court that it had not found any evidence to invoke Section 302 (murder). The high court was hearing petition filed by Agnelo’s father Leonard, who claimed he was sexually tortured and murdered in police custody.

A division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi was hearing petition which alleged that the Wadala railway police had picked up his son and three of his friends, one of whom was a minor, in a chain snatching case. Leonard stated that police had sexually assaulted his son and had beaten him to death. Later, they had allegedly thrown his body on the railway track and said he was run over by train while escaping their custody and died.

Leonard approached high court seeking a CBI investigation. After the probe was carried out, the CBI had arrested 10 police officers, including a woman, and filed the chargesheet. The CBI had invoked minor sections like voluntarily causing hurt and criminal conspiracy.  The CBI had recently invoked the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against three policemen. As of now, the investigation agency has filed two chargesheets against the accused. The HC said that murder sections and section of unnatural sex could be invoked against the police officers.