MUMBAI, Oct. 8 -- A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Tuesday convicted two former police personnel-a police sub-inspector (PSI) and a head constable (HC) then attached to the Ghatkopar police station-in a September 2009 custodial death case, and sentenced them to seven years' imprisonment. It also imposed a fine of Rs 62,000 each on the two convicts-ex-PSI Sanjay Sudam Khedekar and ex-head constable Raghunath Vithoba Kolekar-of which Rs 1,00,000 will go to the mother of the victim as compensation. The case pertained to the custodial death of Altaf Kadir Shaikh, who died within hours of the police picking him up from his residence at 4 am on September 11, 2009 in connection with a house break-in. According to the findings of a forensic laboratory, Shaikh died due to contusions on the head. According to the FIR, the three police officials went to Shaikh's residence, picked him up and took him to Ghatkopar police station. Around 9 am, a senior police inspector, while on his routine rounds, noticed Altaf lying in the detention room. Presuming he was asleep, he tried to awaken him but Altaf did not respond. He was immediately rushed to Rajawadi Hospital, where he was declared dead before being admitted. The police had claimed that Shaikh was a drug addict and had consumed alcohol when he was picked up, and the post-mortem report had indicated death due to subarachnoid (brain) haemorrhage due to drug overdose. However, Shaikh's mother, Mehrunissa Kadir Shaikh, filed a petition in the HC, seeking action against the police personnel responsible for her son's death, after which the case was transferred from the crime branch to the CBI. The high court had taken cognisance of the policemen's conduct and held that prima facie the death of Shaikh had taken place in the police station as a result of torture. In pursuance of the Bombay high court's order of October 16, 2009 in the criminal writ petition filed by the deceased's mother, and an order of the Supreme Court dated November 23, 2009 in a Special Leave Petition filed by Khedekar and others, the CBI's Mumbai unit had registered a case to probe the death on November 27, 2009. "It was alleged that the deceased was arrested in a Ghatkopar police station case and died due to custodial torture by police officials," a CBI official said. After completion of its investigation, the CBI filed a chargesheet on December 30, 2010 against Khedekar, Kolekar, and Sayaji Bapurao Thombare, a then police naik, after which the trial in the case began. Thombare expired during the trial, and the case against him was abated, the official said. "The court, after the trial, convicted and sentenced the two accused," the official said. In 2023, the high court had directed that murder charges be framed against the three accused. However, CBI special judge A V Gujarathi convicted the two policemen for assaulting the victim and also for voluntarily causing hurt to extort a confession or compel the restoration of property under Section 330 of the Indian Penal Code. The court acquitted them of the charge of murder....