By IANS
New Delhi : Former Delhi Police assistant commissioner Satyaveer Singh Rathi and nine other policemen were Wednesday awarded life imprisonment by a court here for killing two innocent citizens in the heart of the capital in March 1997.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar awarded life sentence to the 10 former policemen, dismissing a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to give them death sentence.
“The (prosecution’s) prayer for death sentence is dismissed. The court awards life sentence to all of you (convicts),” the judge said.
CBI counsel made a strong demand for death sentence to three of the convicts – Rathi and constables Mahaveer Singh and Kotharee Ram.
CBI counsel contended that the two constables deserved the death penalty as they were the ones who had fired to kill businessman Pradeep Goel and his friend Jagjeet Singh on March 31, 1997 on the outer circle of the Connaught Place, mistaking one of them as dreaded mobster Yaseen Mohammed.
CBI counsel said that the two victims had together received eight gunshots – six fired by constable Kotharee Ram from his AK-47 rifle and two by Mahaveer Singh. A total of 34 rounds were fired by the police in the incident.
CBI counsel demanded death penalty for Rathee, saying that he was the senior-most officer, responsible for the action of his subordinates.
“It was under his guidance that the killings had taken place,” the CBI counsel contended.
Counsel for various accused, however, pleaded for leniency.
After hearing the arguments in the forenoon session, the judge reserved his verdict on the quantum of the sentence, which he delivered at 3.10 p.m.
Rathi and his nine-member police team were convicted Oct 16 by the judge for their role in what came to be known as the Connaught Place shootout case, which the then police commissioner Nikhil Kumar had described as “a genuine case of mistaken identity”.
Besides Rathi, Ram and Singh, the others who were awarded life term included inspector Anil Kumar, sub-inspector Ashok Rana, policemen Shiv Kumar, Tejpal Singh, Sumer Singh, Subhash Chand and Sunil Kumar.