He was arrested after 32 years, and the accused’s claim that his identity case was wrong, can be considered at the trial stage, a special court said, while denying bail and release to a 63-year-old man held in the 1992 JJ Hospital shooting case. The shootout resulting from a gang rivalry between gangs Arun Jolly and Dawood Ibrahim took place at JJ Hospital, leaving three people dead, including two policemen.
It was Tribhuvan Rampati Singh He was arrested in October 2024After police claimed he was found serving a prison sentence in a prison in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh. The police claimed that Singh was the same person as Shrikant Rai alias Pradhan, the person mentioned in the 1992 case. But Singh disputed this, stating that there was no evidence that he was the same person behind the shooting. The police sought to conduct a DNA test on Singh but he refused, after which he was identified with the help of a doctor who treated injuries sustained by Singh in 1992, during a shootout, and a policeman who recorded his statements at the time.
“…The medical examination of the injury certificate of the present applicant (Singh) also reflects that the applicant is the person who was injured in the incident and subsequently fled. When the applicant was asked to give blood sample for DNA profile during investigation, he completely denied it. The defense raised by the applicant of mistaken identity should be taken into consideration at the trial stage, and not at this interim stage, when the eyewitness has identified him as one of the attackers,” Special Judge Mahesh K. Jadhav said in the order.
Singh through his lawyer Sudeep Paspula claimed that the identification of the witnesses was done after 32 years and hence could not be relied upon. He also claimed that eyewitnesses said that there were two shooters, and that they had already been tried, and one of them was acquitted. Special Public Prosecutor Sunil Gonsalves said that apart from witnesses, the court can also rely on confessions of other accused.
The court said that there were sufficient grounds to take action against the accused, and that he had failed to file a case for release on bail.
© Indian Express Private Limited
(Tags for translation) 1992 JJ Hospital shooting case
