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HP govt revokes suspension of Kotkhai custodial death accused ex-IG Zahur Zaidi
A notification to this effect was issued by the department of home; Zahur Haider Zaidi has been directed to report at the police headquarters and his posting orders will be issued separately
The Himachal Pradesh government on Friday revoked the suspension of Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Zahur Haider Zaidi, an accused in the Kotkhai custodial death case.
A notification to this effect was issued by the department of home. Zaidi has been directed to report at the police headquarters and his posting orders will be issued separately.
The 1994-batch officer, who has spent a long time in jail in connection with the case, was suspended on January 15, 2020, for allegedly mounting pressure on fellow officer Soumya Sambasivan to change her statement in the case, which also resulted in the cancellation of his bail.
He was, however, granted a regular bail by the Punjab and Haryana high court in October 2022.
On January 8, 2020, Sambasivan, a prosecution witness in the custodial death case, had told a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court that Zaidi had been trying to contact her over phone since September 2019. “He used the phone at the Shimla police headquarters and made calls from his mobile phone via WhatsApp to her and her subordinate staff,” she had claimed.
“He continuously tried to pressure me to change my statement and even said that I should be ready to face a team of lawyers and a 30-page questionnaire,” she alleged.
Sambasivan had reported the matter to the Himachal Pradesh DGP, on whose intervention Zaidi stopped calling her up from the police headquarters phone, but started contacting her reader and personal security.
The court had provided extra security to Sambasivan after she levelled the charges on Zaidi.
Zaidi is among nine people indicted by the CBI in the custodial death case of one of the six suspects in the rape and murder of a schoolgirl in the Kotkhai area of Shimla.
The girl had gone missing in Kotkhai on July 4, 2017, and her body was found in the Halaila forests two days later.
The autopsy had confirmed rape and murder.
Following a public outcry, a special investigation team (SIT), headed by Zaidi, who was then the Inspector General of Police (IGP), was set up by the then Congress government.
The SIT had arrested six persons and after the custodial death of one suspect named Suraj, the high court handed over the investigation of both cases to the CBI.
