Mohali, April 22 -- A special CBI court in Mohali acquitted former inspector general of police (IGP) Gautam Cheema, co-accused Ajay Chaudhary and four others in a 2014 case where a proclaimed offender was allegedly removed illegally from police custody and beaten up. Holding that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, the court set aside the trial court conviction of IGP Cheema, Ajay Chaudhary, Rashmi Negi, Varun Utreja, Vicky Verma and Aryan Singh under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 186 (obstruction of a public servant ) and 225 (resisting, obstructing, or rescuing another person from lawful custody or apprehension for an offense) of the Indian Penal Code. The case dates back to August 26, 2014, when Sumedh Gulati, a proclaimed offender in a cheating case, was allegedly picked up from Max Hospital in Mohali and taken to a police station. The prosecution claimed that Cheema, then posted as IG Punjab, later arrived with his associates and forcibly removed Gulati from custody and took him back to the hospital, where he was allegedly assaulted. An FIR was registered on August 30, 2014. Years later, in March 2020, the Punjab and Haryana high court transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which re-registered the case and conducted a fresh probe. In its judgment, the court found serious inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, noting that key witnesses, including the alleged victim Sumedh Gulati, turned hostile and did not support the prosecution's version. Gulati "strikes at the very root of the prosecution case," the court observed. The absence of proper daily diary (DDR) entries further weakened the case. "The evidence is riddled with inconsistencies, omissions, and contradictions, rendering it wholly unreliable," the court said, adding that gaps in the prosecution case cannot be filled through assumptions....