Ex-cop Bhatt acquitted in custodial torture case

A court in Porbandar district of Gujarat acquitted sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in connection with a 1997 custodial torture case, saying that the prosecution could not "prove the case beyond reasonable doubt" and the prosecution did not obtain appropriate sanction to prosecute a public servant.

- Agencies

PORBANDAR:

Hearing the matter on Saturday, the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Mukesh Pandya held that the prosecution could not "prove the case beyond reasonable doubt" that the complainant was forced to confess to the crime and made to surrender by voluntarily causing pain using dangerous weapons.

It noted that appropriate sanction required to prosecute Bhatt, the then superintendent of police (SP) of Porbandar, had not been obtained in the case.

Bhatt, who is currently lodged in the Rajkot Central Jail, is already serving life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case in Jamnagar and 20 years in jail in a 1996 case related to planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur.