Ramani goes from witness to accused

NEW DELHI: Bina Ramani, a key witness in the Jessica Lal murder case, has become an accused. The Special Investigation Team (SIT), set up on the Delhi high court’s order to reinvestigate the murder, said this in court on Friday.

“We made her an accused after a witness said that he had cleaned the blood on Ramani’s instructions,” the investigating officer said. The clarification was sought by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau while hearing arguments on Ramani’s bail plea.

Lau asked whether Ramani was a witness or an accused and whether the forgery and the murder were linked. Ramani was served a warrant for acquiring a licence to run the restaurant in south Delhi where Lal was shot dead on April 30, 1999.

The prosecution said the forgery case came up while investigating the murder. A case was filed at the Mehrauli police station to investigate the criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence that led to the acquittal of the accused, Manu Sharma.

Ramani, charged under sections 120(b) (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the IPC, is the first person to be named in the new FIR. But she was granted bail in the forgery case.

The defence accused the prosecution of weakening the case by turning all the witnesses into accused.