NEW DELHI: Olympic wrestler Sushil Kumar moved to a Delhi court on Monday for bail on the Chhatrasal Stadium murder, saying police set up a fake case and presented a “guilty picture” of him.
Kumar and others allegedly attacked former junior wrestling champion Sagar Dhankar and his friends at the stadium in May over an alleged property dispute. Dhankar later succumbed to the injuries.
Judge Shivaji Anand will hear the plea against bail on Tuesday.
Attorney Nitin Vasishth, who appeared on behalf of the victim, and Complainant Sonu, said that Kumar should not be released on bail as there are other defendants being arrested and they, along with Kumar, could influence the witnesses
The international wrestler, who has been in jail since June 2, 2021, sought discharge from the court alleging that he was falsely implicated in the alleged murder and that the allegations were made with the aim of humiliating him and damaging his reputation.
In the plea, he said that the “unfortunate death” of a budding wrestler was made sensational and exploited against him by selfish parties.
The Olympian stressed that the police had done no stone unturned to present a “false and guilty picture” of him and fed the media with false information in order to falsely establish a connection between him and renowned gangsters.
“They even went so far as to paint a grotesque picture of the current defendant in whom he was himself a gangster, and questions were even asked against his ancestors,” said Kumar in a 16-page plea on bail.
After filing the indictment, however, all allegations and leaks of the investigative authority are untrue and without any support in reality, according to the plea submitted by lawyer Pradeep Rana.
To support his claims, he stated that the FIR was filed with a delay and that witnesses’ testimony had been tarnished by improvements and abridgements and deliberately withheld by the investigating authority to build a “false case”.
“At the end of the investigation, the investigative authorities found a new version that the deceased had given the police officers a death declaration in order to bite the otherwise toothless case of the public prosecutor’s office,” said Kumar.
He also called the FIR a common mix of “guess, guess and malafid intent”, adding that police arrested him with no concrete evidence.
The wrestler said he will no longer be needed for custodial interrogation, let alone recovery or discovery of incriminating material, since the indictment has been filed showing that the investigation against him has been completed.
Kumar said nothing incriminating him was found, further confirming his innocence, but the investigative agency to set up a case against him has attributed certain vehicles and weapons to him.
The wrestler went on to tell the court that he had a clean history and had never broken any law.
“The defendant has received various laurels for India and made the nation proud by winning medals at numerous international tournaments and championships,” the plea reads, listing all the medals he has won over the years.
The Olympic wrestler said he was confident he could prove his innocence in any court of law and any detention at this stage would be just pre-trial detention through no fault of his own for his innocence.
Police had previously said the stadium brawl was the result of a plot by Kumar to restore his supremacy among the younger wrestlers.
Kumar and 12 other defendants were named in the indictment filed by Delhi police in August.
The Delhi Police had filed an FIR against the accused for crimes such as murder, attempted murder, culpable homicide, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, robbery, riot, among others.
