Nilesh Pawaskar, the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the actress Pratyusha Banerjee suicide case, has recommended the state law & judiciary department (L&JD) to challenge the order given by the Bombay High Court (HC) granting anticipatory bail to Banerjee's boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh in the Supreme Court (SC).
In his letter, Pawaskar stated that on the very first day of anticipatory bail hearing of Singh, the HC granted him interim relief and approved his bail application without considering the gravity of the offence the accused has committed.
"Even though Singh was booked by Bangur Nagar police on charges of abetment to commit suicide among other charges, there are several suspicious elements in the case which were overlooked by the police. Hence, it is important that Singh should be tried on charges of murder, culpable homicide and forcing a woman to promote miscarriage or abortion and should be sentenced for imprisonment as prescribed in the law," said Pawaskar.
"I tried my best to secure police custody for Singh during arguments. My scrutiny of case reports brought to my notice that Banerjee was tremendously tortured by the accused, the accused had relations with many women where he allegedly used their money and fled. The police investigation is also not up to the mark as many facts are hidden and were unobserved by the HC. The court has failed to notice that the accused is involved in abeting the deceased to commit suicide. Instead of granting custodial interrogation, they awarded him bail," Pawaskar's letter stated.
"The last telephone conversation between Banerjee and Singh clears all doubts, where the deceased told Singh that she was tortured, harassed and forced to commit abortion. Her statement "ab baccha kaha se vapas aayega" specifies that she was willing to have kids but he forced her to abort it. Singh, who is either a drug addict or peddler, alleged that Banerjee was drunk at the time of the suicide but the police have not found liquor bottles from the spot. Statements of the witnesses are not recorded properly by the police and Singh has allegedly created witnesses before the incident. He has tempered with evidences and after taking Banerjee's cellphone from the hospital, he absconded from the police for a long time," Pawaskar told dna.
According to Pawaskar, Singh would have revealed unknown facts about the case if he was granted custody. If the state government gives due consideration to the matter, he shall take it further to the SC.
