A Delhi court on Sunday sent wrestler and Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, arrested in connection with his alleged involvement in the death of a 23-year-old old wrestler at the city’s Chhatrasal Stadium, to six days police custody.
The police questioned Sushil Kumar inside the court and then sought his custody for 12 days for further interrogation in the matter. Duty Metropolitan Magistrate Divya Malhotra, however, granted six-day custody of him, along with co-accused Ajay.
Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Shrivastava, representing Delhi Police, submitted that some CCTV footage, the alleged weapon used for committing the offences and also the mobile phones are yet to be recovered by the police as he sought 12 days custody.
Sushil Kumar was evading arrest and he has been on the run for close to three weeks. According to the police, he and his associates allegedly assaulted fellow wrestler Sagar Dhankar and his two friends Sonu and Amit Kumar at the stadium on May 4 night. Dhankar succumbed to his injuries later.
Shrivastava added the accused would have to taken to various states for the purpose of interrogation and 12 days remand was justified against the backdrop of Covid-19 guidelines.
Sushil Kumar’s counsel contested this argument and submitted that non-bailable warrants were issued against the accused persons which shows police have already identified all of them.
Police cannot seek Sushil Kumar’s custody for the purpose of identification of other persons when his client had already stated he was falsely implicated in the case, he said.
Shrivastava, however, insisted that Kumar’s custodial interrogation was required to unearth the conspiracy and the motive for the offence.
The police in the status report challenging Sushil Kumar’s anticipatory bail plea cited the autopsy report, which claimed that cause of death to be “cerebral damage due to dande ki pitaayi (beating with wooden staves)”.
In the anticipatory bail plea, Sushil Kumar said: “The victims are falsely implicating the applicant because he had asked Sagar to leave his property as the same was being misused by him. It is also known to everyone associated with the Chhatrasal stadium that the purported victims were trying to defame and fix the Applicant for a long time and are trying to falsely implicate the applicant in the present matter.” Kumar’s anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the court.
The Delhi Police have filed an FIR under Sections 302 (murder), 308 (culpable homicide), 365 (kidnapping), 325 (causing grievous hurt), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
They have also included Sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of IPC and various sections under the Arms Act.
