Reply to Sachin Waze's plea, Bombay HC tells prosecution

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court (HC) has asked the prosecution to file a reply on a revision application filed by former encounter specialist Sachin Waze, challenging the framing of murder charges against him in the 2003 Khwaja Yunus custodial death case. According to Waze, as per the case of prosecution, he was not present in the room where Yunus was allegedly kicked by policemen, which allegedly lead to his death. Waze’s lawyer has completed his arguments and the court has asked the prosecution to file its reply on his application.

Waze’s lawyer, Sudeep Pasbola had argued before Justice Prakash Deu Naik that it is not the case of the prosecution that Waze was present when Yunus was allegedly beaten by two policemen in a room. He pointed out to the court that according to the prosecution, applicant caused the disappearance of Yunus’s body.

According to the applicant the police team was taking Yunus to Aurangabad for some investigation and en route, the police vehicle met with an accident, which led to all the policemen falling unconscious. Taking benefit of this, Yunus fled away from the place of incident. However, the police refused to accept this story. According to Advocate Pasbola, in view of above facts, at the most Waze could be charged for causing disappearance of the evidence and not murder.

The trial court has finished examining Dr Abdul Mateen as witness and now another witness would be called.

It may be recalled that it was Dr Mateen who had written to the HC alleging that Yunus must have died due to police torture.