Ex-cop Sachin Waze seeks to turn approver in Khwaja Yunus custodial death case

MUMBAI: Dismissed Mumbai police officer Sachin Waze moved an application before the court on Monday seeking pardon and wishing to turn approver in the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case of 2002, stating that he wasn’t part of Yunus murder and that his alleged involvement emerged only after his murder. Yunus, a software engineer working in Dubai, was picked up by the Mumbai police’s Crime Branch from Parbhani in December 2002 in connection with the bomb blast in a BEST bus outside Ghatkopar railway station which killed two people and injured 50 others.
For context, turning approver is someone who provides full disclosure about a crime in exchange for a pardon. Waze prayed the court to record his statement wherein he has agreed to make full and true disclosure of the facts of the case. “I have been suffering because of the pendency of this matter for the last 20 years. This is not only abuse of the process of law, but it has been harming my livelihood, reputation and status in society,” his plea said.
He stated that the crucial aspect of this case is pending before the Supreme Court and its outcome is unlikely in the near future. It does not seem like the trial would resume in the near future, and the end of this trial would take some years, the plea said.
“The agony I am facing would be endless,” he said. “I have decided to stick to my conscience and wish to make a full and true disclosure within my knowledge relating to the offence,” Waze said.
Waze denied having any mechanism or authority to verify the identity of the arrested terrorists, adding that he joined the investigation of the blast case only on January 6, 2003, and that Yunus, as he appeared in the case paper and newspaper photos, was never handed over to him.
“It is the prosecution’s case that I have neither assaulted the disappeared terrorist Yunus nor have I committed his murder. It is the prosecution’s case that somebody else assaulted him and thereby caused his murder. It is the prosecution’s case that I’ve carried somebody else in place of Khwaja Yunus and by creating false accident theory I caused disappearance of evidence,” he added.
Yunus was detained soon after the bomb blast and allegedly escaped from custody in the intervening night of January 6-7, 2003, while being escorted to Aurangabad for further investigation in the blast case, when the police vehicle carrying him met with an accident in Ahmednagar district.
An FIR was registered in connection with the incident at the Parner police station. However, during an enquiry into the so-called accident conducted by the special Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) court in Mumbai, Dr Abdul Mateen, who was also one of the accused, revealed that he had heard Yunus being beaten, and later vomiting, in an adjacent cell. Mateen claimed that Yunus had likely died on January 6.
Subsequently, the state’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) registered an FIR against police officers for allegedly killing Yunus in custody and then destroying evidence.
The CID inquiry had at the time indicted 14 policemen, but the government granted the sanction to prosecute only four — Waze, Rajendra Tiwari, Rajaram Nikam and Sunil Desai. They are currently facing trial in the case on the charges of murder, fabricating evidence and hatching a criminal conspiracy.
Waze, who served as an assistant police inspector, is currently in jail in the Antilia bomb scare case.