Ex-colonel walks free in parcel bomb case

Sanjay Sikand was 11 years old when his father was killed in a parcel bomb explosion. Almost 27 years later, the Delhi HC on Friday acquitted the man accused in the case — a retired Lt Colonel — because there was not enough evidence against him, reports Harish V Nair.

Sanjay Sikand was 11 years old when his father was killed in a parcel bomb explosion.

HT Image

Almost 27 years later, the Delhi High Court on Friday acquitted the man accused in the case — a retired Lt Colonel — because there was not enough evidence against him.

“The trial court took 26 years to study the evidence and convict him,” said Sanjay Sikand. “The high court acquitted him in less than a year.”

The high court’s order came a year after a lower court sentenced retd Lt Col SJ Choudhary, now 71 years old, to life imprisonment on May 3, 2008.

Delhi businessman Krishan Sikand was killed when he tried to open a packet received at his residence in South Delhi’s upscale Sunder Nagar on October 2, 1982.

Forty-year-old Sikand was the son of the owner of Sikand Motors, HD Sikand, a leading automobile dealer in the city.

The case had created a sensation because it was India’s first parcel bomb murder.

The CBI, arrested Choudhary almost a year later for killing Sikand “to avenge” the victim’s proximity with his estranged wife. The case then dragged on in the trial court for 25 years before he was convicted and handed down a life term.

On Friday, Judges Pradeep Nandrajog and Aruna Suresh said there wasn’t enough evidence on record to link Choudhary with the murder.

“It is unfortunate that a crime is going unpunished, but we cannot hang any person for the crime unless our judicial conscience is satisfied...,” said the Bench.

HD Sikand, who fought to get justice for his son for 26 years, died at 98 on February 14 this year.