Zulfiqar case: Lone child witness turns hostile

Aneesha Sareen

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 6

In a major setback to the prosecution in the sodomy case against Zulfiqar Khan, the lone child witness turned hostile when he was examined in the child witness court today.

The 16-year-old boy, who as per the police case, is seen in the photographs in which the accused is seen sodomising him, deposed before the court that Zulfiqar Khan never committed any sexual act with him and that he is an “innocent person”.

“The accused has not done anything with me. Till date, I have not given any statement to the police and I have never visited the police station. The accused has not done anything wrong with me and he is an innocent person. Since nothing was done with me, so I cannot be in those photographs,” he said to the court when he was declared hostile on the request of public prosecutor JP Singh.

The boy denied ever having visited the police station with his parents and also denied the story that Zulfiqar Khan used to commit sexual assault on him while taking him to his room on the top floor of his house in Sector 25.

“It is wrong to suggest that Zulfiqar Khan committed unnatural sex with me at his house in Sector 25. It is wrong to suggest that I was shown porn movies at his house on the top floor. I do not know whether Zulfiqar is there in the photographs,” he said. The child also denied that the accused ever intoxicated him or sodomised him under the effect of liquor at night.

Complainant stands by his statements

Even as the child witness turned hostile, the main complainant in the case, Kanwar Pal, stood by his statements and narrated the trauma he went through when he first saw Zulfiqar Khan sodomising children studying in his Sector 25 house where the accused used to take extra classes for  ‘weak students’. 

“I know the accused Zulfiqar Khan for the past two decades as we first used to perform street play on drug abuse, female foeticide and other social issues. The institution was registered in 1992 in the name of Theatre Age and I was employed with the NGO for over 20 years. In 2013, I went to the Sector 25 house of the accused at night as I needed money to pay a barber. The door of the house opened when I pushed it. I noticed a young boy lying there without clothes. I then went to the third floor to Zulfiqar’s room where I saw him sodomising a young boy and committing unnatural sex with him. I returned and was in a state of shock. As I confronted him, Zulfiqar told me that I had no proof and asked me to stay quiet. He then sacked me and also stopped paying my salary. One of the boys then approached me with four photographs in which 

Zulfiqar is seen sodomising four children at a time. Since now I had the proof, I approached the Child Commission. The police then acted and arrested Zulfiqar Khan,” he said.