Ajmer, August 20: Ajmer’s POCSO case special court number two on Tuesday sentenced six accused, found guilty in the much talked about obscene blackmail case that happened 32 years ago, to life imprisonment.
The court has also imposed a fine of five lakh rupees on each of them.
Earlier, Ajmer’s POCSO court had convicted 6 accused this morning itself. The victim women of this case and their families were waiting for this decision. Everyone called it a victory of justice.
At the time of the verdict being pronounced today, six accused Nafees Chishti, Naseem alias Tarzan, Salim Chishti, Sohil Gani, Syed Zameer Hussain were present in the court, while one accused Iqbal Bhati was brought from Delhi to Ajmer via ambulance.
The chargesheet against these six accused was presented on June 23, 2001. Their hearing was completed in July this year. Then the court had postponed the verdict till July 20 when one of the accused Iqbal did not appear.
Holding all of them guilty, the court pronounced the verdict today after 2 pm.This case is 32 years old, when more than 100 girl students of many colleges of Ajmer were blackmailed by taking their photographs. After the case came to light in 1992, the nine accused identified along with the above six accused include Farooq Chishti, Anwar Chishti, Parvez Ansari, Puttan Allahabadi, Ishrat alias Lalli, Mahesh Ludhani, Kailash Soni, Harish Tolani and Shamsu Bhisti alias Maradona. All of them were arrested by Ajmer’s Ganj police station after the case was registered.
In this case, 104 witnesses and 245 documents have been presented by the prosecution. In this case, out of a total of eighteen accused, nine accused have already been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Ajmer Sessions Court, while one accused has committed suicide. One accused, Almas Maharaj, is absconding. A red corner notice has been issued against him.Puttan Allahabadi’s relative Naseem alias Tarzan, a resident of Allahabad, who was arrested during this time, absconded after being released on bail, who was later caught.
The court started a separate hearing against him and the hearing against him is going on. Of the accused, Salim Chishti was arrested by the police from the Dargah area on the basis of intelligence information, whereas Jameel Chishti got anticipatory bail from the court.
Nafees Chishti, who is said to be the mastermind of this scandal, was caught during his escape by the policemen of Delhi’s Dhaula Kuan outpost while he was traveling in a bus wearing a burqa and disguised as a woman. After this, Mumbai resident Iqbal Bhati was caught. After spending about 29 years on the run, accused Sohail Ghani surrendered in the court.
In this much talked about case, one of the accused Almas Mahara has been declared absconding. However, he is said to be in America. A red corner warrant has also been issued against him. In this case, Parvez Ansari, Mahesh Ludhani, Harish Tolani, Kailash Soni were sentenced to life imprisonment by the lower court in 1998 but later they were acquitted by the High Court. Accused Purushottam alias Babli committed suicide in 1994 while the case was going on after coming out on bail. A case of rape of a boy is going on against another accused Zahoor Chishti. Farooq Chishti was sentenced to life imprisonment by the lower court in 2007. In 2013, the High Court released him on the sentence he had already served.
This case was revealed when the accused gave the photo to a lab for developing the reel. The intentions of the lab employees got corrupted after seeing the nude pictures. It was through them that nude photos of girls came in the market. Only a few people had the master prints but their xerox copies started circulating in the city. Whoever got hold of these photos started blackmailing the girls. Due to this, 6 girls of the college committed suicide. Troubled, some girl students showed courage and approached the police. Names of many rich people came out in the case.
The names of mastermind Ajmer Youth Congress President Farooq Chishti, Nafees Chishti and Anwar Chishti were also included in this. The then Bhairon Singh Shekhawat government had given the investigation to the CID.
