Jamnagar, : A local court here on Thursday sentenced sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to life imprisonment in connection with the 1989 custodial death case.
According to the prosecution, Bhatt, who was posted as the Additional Superintendent of Police in Gujarat’s Jamnagar, had detained more than 100 people during a communal riot there and one of the detainees had died in hospital after he was released.
The deceased’s brother Amritbhai filed a case alleging that his brother died due to custodial torture by eight policemen, including Bhatt and then constable Pravin Zala, who has also been awarded life imprisonment.
On June 12, the Supreme Court dismissed Bhatt’s petition seeking a direction to summon certain additional witnesses for examination during the trial in a three-decade-old custodial death case. The Gujarat government too had opposed his plea, saying that it was a delaying tactic at at time when the lower court has already completed the final hearing and was about to deliver the verdict.
Bhatt, a Gujarat cadre IPS, was suspended by the state government in 2011 for remaining absent from duty without permission, and later sacked for the same in August 2015.
He is currently in judicial custody in connection with a drug planting case.
UNI.
