Breaking:Major relief for former IG; High Court suspended life imprisonment sentence
Babushahi Bureau
Chandigarh, December 23, 2025: In a significant development in the high-profile Gudiya rape and murder case of 2017 from Kotkhai in Himachal Pradesh’s Shimla district, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday granted major relief to former IG Zahoor Haider Zaidi.
The High Court suspended the life imprisonment sentence awarded to him by a Chandigarh-based CBI court in the custodial killing of accused Suraj.
Earlier, the CBI court in Chandigarh had convicted former IPS officer Zahoor Haider Zaidi along with eight police officers and personnel in the case and sentenced them to life imprisonment. However, the then SP DW Negi, who was also named in the case, was acquitted due to lack of sufficient evidence and witness testimony.
The sentence to the convicted officers was pronounced on January 27 this year.
Besides Zaidi, those convicted included then DSP Manoj Joshi, Sub-Inspector Rajinder Singh, ASI Deep Chand Sharma, Standard Head Constables Mohan Lal and Surat Singh, Head Constable Rafi Mohammad, and Constable Ranjit Sateta.
It is pertinent to note that accused Suraj, who was arrested in the Gudiya rape and murder case, was killed in police custody at the Kotkhai police station 14 days after Gudiya’s murder. At the time, the police had blamed another accused for Suraj’s death. The incident had triggered massive public outrage, with angry mobs setting fire to the police station and several vehicles.