MUMBAI: Nine months after a chargesheet was filed in Byculla women’s jail inmate, Manjula Shettye (45), death in custody case, a trial court on Tuesday framed charges of murder and criminal conspiracy against all six accused. The accused are all police officials and prison guards.This would be the second major case in Mumbai where police guards will face a murder trial for a death of a person in custody. The last such case was for the death of Khwaja Yunous, an accused arrested for a bomb blast at Ghatkopar in 2004, while he was in custody of the police.The special judge Shayana Patil in a ground floor court room at Sessions court read out and explained to the accused, in Marathi, the charges they faced. She said that they had beaten the inmate with hands, elbows and fists and had not bothered to give her prompt medical aid resulting in her death and how they attempted to destroy evidence. After hearing public prosecutor Vidya Kasle, the court framed charges under sections 302 (murder), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 201 (disappearance of evidence) and 506 (criminal intimidation). The maximum punishment attracted for the crimes is death by hanging.One of the accused, almost was in tears, later outside the court. In court one accused said that, she was just a “trainee’” at the time. The court, which had posted the case, now for trial to begin on July 3, said they could present their case through their lawyers in the trial.Shettye, was serving out a life sentence and was due for remission when she was allegedly assaulted by prison guards at the women’s jail on June 23 when she complained of inadequate food portions.The police had arrested the six officials, including jailer Manisha Pokharkar, and constables Bindu Naikade Surekha Gulve and Aarti Shingne, on July 1, 2017.The chargesheet had not mentioned any charge for any sexual offence. The complainant was an inmate and the police recorder statements of nearly 190 witnesses, mostly other inmates. The witnesses include Indrani Mukerjea, who is lodged there an an undertrial for the Sheena Bora murder case.Initially the local police had said that Shettye had essentially fallen in the prison bathroom and that when a magistrate had visited the prison at 12.30 pm on June 23 for a jail inspection there were no complaints from any inmate about her being assaulted.The police had first registered an ADR report on June 23 and on June 24 booked six jail guards for murder after jail inmates including Mukerjea staged a protest and demanded an FIR alleging that Shetty was assaulted by jail staff on June 23 even as she screamed for help. The Bombay high court too, in a PIL against the tardy probe, had directed crime branch officers to record the statement of the JJ hospital doctor who issued the death certificate within three days.The initial PM report had revealed over a dozen contusions on Shettye’s body.

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