SALMAN HOME FIRING ACCUSED 'SUICIDE', MOM SEEKS CBI PROBE

MUMBAI: The mother of Anuj Thapan, an accused in the firing outside actor Salman Khan’s Bandra residence who allegedly died by suicide in police custody, has moved Bombay high court seeking CBI probe into her son's “unnatural” death. She has also sought registration of FIR against Khan and other culprits.

“Murderous police assault, unending beatings and brutal torture” caused Thapan’s death, states the petition by Rita Devi (40), a resident of Sukhchain village, Fazilka district, Punjab in her petition filed on Friday. Besides the State, she has made actor Salman Khan a respondent to her petition.

On April 14, two motorcycle-borne men fired gun-shots outside Galaxy Apartments where Khan resides with his family. On April 25 Thapan and his associate Subhash Chander were apprehended from Punjab on charges of supplying firearms and ammunition. The police claimed he was allegedly associated with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. On April 26 a magistrate sent them to police custody. On May 1, Thapan was found hanging in the lock-up toilet of the Crime Branch in the Commissionerate Complex at Crawford market.

Rita Devi’s petition states that her son was a helper with a truck driver and had not come home for many days. Few days ago, she received a call from Mumbai that her son was arrested by the Crime Branch in a matter. She could hear him shouting in the background saying “Yeh log mujhe maar denge, Mujhe bacha lijiye”. Then the phone call was disconnected. She tried to reconnect the call but “it was all in vain.” On March 25 she learnt through news that her son was “falsely implicated” in the FIR.

Her petition said on April 26, Thapan and Bishnoi were remanded to police custody for 4 days by a magistrate. As the police invoked stringent MCOCA on April 27, they were produced before the special court on April 29 and were remanded to police custody till May 8. ON May 1 she learnt that Thappan was “maltreated” and given “third-degree torture” by the police in Salman Khan and “later on the entire incident was given the shape of suicidal death.”

Rita Devi has urged HC to direct a fresh post mortem of Thapan’s body. Also to preserve the CCTV footage of the cell and call data record (CDR) of police officials concerned from April 24 till May 2. Similarly she seeks a direction to preserve the CDR of Salman Khan and his unknown associates.