Acting on a petition, the Bombay High Court today directed Mumbai police to register an FIR into the alleged encounter of Sandeep Ghadoli by Gurgaon police at a hotel here on February 7.
The order was delivered by a division bench of justices Ranjit More and V L Achilya on a writ petition filed by brother of the deceased.
Petitioner Kuldeep Singh alleged that it was a “fake encounter” at the behest of a business rival and demanded that an offence of murder be registered against the police.
A team of Gurgaon police allegedly killed Sandeep (32), a resident of Gadoli village in Gurgaon district of Haryana, at Hotel Airport Metro in suburban Andheri.
Gurgaon police claimed that there was a shoot-out between them and Sandeep.
Public prosecutors Sandeep Shinde and Usha Kejriwal submitted to the high court today that police had registered a case against the deceased under section 307 IPC(attempt to murder) and an Special Investigating Team (SIT) had been formed to probe into the case.
However, the high court directed Mumbai police to register FIR into the alleged encounter.
The court also allowed Kuldeep to take custody of the body lying at a city hospital.
The petitioner alleged that it was a case of murder as police did not give the deceased an opportunity to surrender.
He also alleged that the hotel staff had informed that police first hit Sandeep on his head after which he became unconscious and then they shot at him.
Kuldeep claimed that Gurgaon police also removed CCTV connection in the hotel lobby and did not inform Mumbai police about the operation.
The petition also alleged that the woman, who was accompanying Sandeep at the time of incident, was an informer of Gurgaon police.
As MIDC Andheri police refused to register an FIR, the petitioner said he had moved the high court seeking such a direction.
The petition admitted that there were several criminal cases registered against Sandeep in Gurgaon, but claims he was acquitted in most of them and was facing trial in two cases.
( Source – PTI )
