Chhatrasal murder: Sushil Kumar moves bail petition

New Delhi: Olympic medal-winning International wrestler Sushil Kumar has now moved a bail application in the Chhatrasal murder case, where he stands accused of allegedly killing a 23-year-old junior wrestler Sagar Dhankar, claiming that the Delhi Police had built a "false case" against him, noting several "discrepancies" in the probe conducted so far.

The bail application, filed in the court of Additional Sessions Judge Shivaji Anand, argues that the police delayed registering the FIR in the case, alleges that the initial DD entry on the incident was buried in favour of a subsequent one that mentioned Kumar, adds that no incriminating recoveries had been made from him and that the purported dying declaration of the victim was first mentioned only one month after the probe began, in a few police officials' supplementary statements.

In addition to making the case that he is not a flight risk, Kumar, through the application, argued that he "has brought glory to the Nation through his performances in wrestling" and that he had also purportedly trained young wrestlers, which led to India's wrestling performance at Tokyo at the most recent Olympics.

"The bare perusal of the facts reveals that the unfortunate demise of a budding wrestler has been sensationalised and the same is being exploited against the present applicant/accused (Sushil Kumar) by parties with vested interests," the bail plea read.

The petition claimed that the police had "left no stone unturned" to present a "false and guilty" image of Kumar - facilitated allegedly by selective leaks to the media - which included false information about the accused.

Kumar called the FIR against him a "conjoint mix of assumption, presumptions and mala fide intentions".

In addition to this, Kumar has claimed that the Delhi Police allegedly buried the witness statements of three witnesses/victims of the incident, which would have otherwise exposed alleged inconsistencies in them.

And most revealingly, the petition puts forth the proposition of alleged irregularities in the purported dying declaration of the victim, against Kumar. The wrestler's lawyers said that the dying declaration was not mentioned anywhere in the initial stages of the probe and after one month, it was mentioned by police officials in supplementary statements recorded under Section 161 CrPC on June 5 and June 12 respectively.

The application questions as to why the police officials had not recorded this dying declaration in one month and says their failure to explain this points to a gap in the

probe.

Moreover, the wrestler has questioned the origin of a video allegedly used in the chargesheet to implicate him, claiming that the device it was shot on was not linked to any of the accused or witnesses in the case.