Mumbai: A special women’s court on Wednesday allowed an application made by accused policemen, arrested in connection with the death of a convict Manjula Shetye in Byculla jail, seeking production of CCTV footage of June 23 and 24 of the Byculla jail.
The special women’s court judge Shayana Patil directed the Byculla jail prison authorities to submit the CCTV footage of June 23 and June 24 with the registrar of the Sessions court who in turn will submit it to the court and then the copies would be provided to the defence.
The defence had requested the court to direct prosecution to provide them a copy of the CCTV footage of the prison, as the chargesheet filed against the accused and there was no harm in providing the CCTV recording to accused at this stage. The accused sought these recordings, to rely on them during hearing of their bail application.
All the six accused who were arrested in connection with death of Shetye had filed bail pleas in the sessions court in July and the court is also expected to fix a date on Thursday for hearing the bail application filed by the accused.
The Crime Branch has arrested Manisha Pokharkar, Vasima Shaikh, Sheetal Shegaonkar, Surekha Gulve, Aarti Shinghane and Bindu Naykode who are all jail authorities and police constables.
Inmates have claimed that Shetye died due to the brutal beating she received from jail officials, but prison authorities have claimed that she fell unconscious and died due to the fall.
When their bail plea came up for hearing before sessions judge Dattatray Satawalekar, defence lawyer Vaibhav Bagade made an application seeking direction for the Crime Branch Mumbai, which is investigating the matter to produce CCTV footage of the day of the incident of Byculla jail before the court.
