One of the accused in the sensational murder case of TV scribe Soumya Vishwanathan has approached a Delhi court seeking discharge on the ground that police have failed to link him with the offence.
In an application, filed before additional sessions judge SK Sarvaria, accused Baljeet Singh Malik said the investigators did not attribute any role to him in the chargesheet in the murder of Soumya, a journalist of Headlines Today news channel.
"There is nothing in the chargesheet which can show the actual participation of the accused in the commission of alleged murder of Soumya Vishwanathan," the plea, filed by Malik's advocates Amit Kumar and RK Mishra, said.
The court, which is to frame charges against the accused and four others including prime suspect Ravi Kapoor, has posted the application for a hearing tomorrow.
Kapoor had allegedly shot at Soumya on the night of September 30 last year while she was returning home by her car from office at around 3:30am.
The other four accused including Malik were in the car, used in trailing the victim, police said, adding that they wanted to rob her off valuables.
Police said recovery of the weapon allegedly used in the murder of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh, who was killed on March 18 this year, had led to the cracking of the killing of Soumya also.
The accused, arrested on March 28 in connection with Ghosh's murder, was later framed in the Soumya case on the basis of his disclosure statement alone, the application said.
"It is settled law that the disclosure statement has no evidentiary value in the eyes of law...," it said.
The plea said the accused was "falsely implicated" in the case due to the pressure of the media as the victim was working for a leading media house.
"Police has been clueless even after the lapse of six months since the date of alleged offence," it said adding that "the accused has allegedly been shown to be sitting on the back seat of the car and nothing more has been assigned to him."
Besides Malik, the other accused in the cases are Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Ajay Sethi. They have been booked under various provisions of IPC and MCOCA dealing with robbery, murder, criminal conspiracy and running an organised crime syndicate.
Police had claimed robbery was the motive which led to the killing of Ghosh and the scribe.
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