MUMBAI, March 28 -- Ten years after Haryana-based gangster Sandeep Gadoli was shot dead in an alleged fake encounter in a Mumbai hotel, a sessions court on Friday acquitted all seven accused, including five Haryana police personnel, citing lack of cogent evidence to sustain charges of murder and criminal conspiracy. Additional sessions judge Prashant C Kale pronounced the verdict in a packed courtroom, bringing to a close a case that had triggered a high-profile probe and raised serious questions about inter-state policing and alleged extra-judicial killings. Among those acquitted were Haryana police officers Pradyuman Yadav, Paramjeet Ahlawat, Jitendra Jaipal Yadav, Deepak Kumar and Vedprakash Kakran, along with alleged co-conspirators gangster Virendra alias Binder Gujjar and Soniya Pahuja, mother of model Divya Pahuja. Yadav and Ahlawat were produced from jail, where they had remained incarcerated for nearly a decade during the trial. Gujjar, an accused in over 30 cases, was absconding at the time; he was arrested in 2019 from another jail in connection with the case and had been in custody since. According to the prosecution, Gadoli, who had over 36 criminal cases against him, including murder and extortion, was tracked down to a hotel in Andheri on February 7, 2016, where he was staying with Divya Pahuja. A Haryana Police team from the Gurgaon Crime Branch allegedly shot him dead in a staged encounter, acting at the behest of his rival, Gujjar. The SIT of the Mumbai Police, which probed the case following directions from the Bombay High Court, had concluded that the killing was premeditated. Investigators alleged that Gadoli was unarmed and that the scene was manipulated to depict an exchange of fire. The SIT had relied on call detail records, CCTV footage and ballistic evidence to argue that the encounter was fake and that evidence had been fabricated. It also accused Divya Pahuja and her mother of helping the police track Gadoli, thereby facilitating the killing. However, the court accepted the defence's argument that the prosecution failed to conclusively establish that the encounter was staged or that there was any conspiracy linking the police team with Gujjar. Advocate Tabish Mooman, defence counsel for Gujjar argued that he was already in custody in another case at the time of the incident and that no evidence was presented to show communication between him and the police personnel or any motive for the alleged conspiracy. The court held that the prosecution could not prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt, leading to the acquittal of all accused. Divya Pahuja, who was present in the hotel room at the time of the shooting and was later made an accused, was shot dead in Gurugram in January 2024 in a separate case. Proceedings against her in the present matter subsequently abated. Following Friday's verdict, Soniya Pahuja broke down outside the courtroom, saying she wished her daughter had lived to see the acquittal....