A day after the Delhi police approached a city court seeking more time to finish the ongoing probe against the four accused in the TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan murder case, in a dramatic U-turn on Friday it withdrew the plea and filed the chargesheet against the accused.
The police, however, did not give any reason for withdrawing the plea for more time to conclude the probe.
The plea to withdrew the application came as a surprise as the police in their application had on Thursday said that “in the interest of justice, 30 days’ more time may kindly be granted to the investigating agency to conclude the remaining task and to finalise the probe”.
Allowing the public prosecutor Rajeev Mohan to withdraw the application, additional sessions judge (ASJ) S.K. Sarvaria took the chargesheet into the records.
Filing the 489-page chargesheet under MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act) against four accused Ajay Sethi, Baljeet Singh Malik, Amit Shukla and Ajay Kumar, the police alleged that “Ravi Kapoor is a habitual criminal and besides becoming a terror in the mind of general public and running a criminal syndicate along with his associates, he not only killed innocent persons for pecuniary gains but also committed crimes of robbery and theft etc.”
Amit Kumar, the lawyer appearing for the accused Baljeet Malik and two others, talking to this newspaper over the phone, said, “I am surprised that yesterday, the police wanted a month’s time to conclude the probe on the ground that they had to verify so many new things, but within a day, they are saying that the probe is over and nearly 500-page chargesheet is filed in the court. How come the police has prepared a bulky chargesheet in less than 24 hours, it is hard to believe.”
Kapoor, along with Malik, Amit Shukla and Ajay Kumar, had allegedly tailed the journalist and shot her on the night of September 30, 2008, when she was returning home from office at around 3.30 am.