by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Archana Sharma,
Jaipur : A 25-page chargesheet filed by the police on Friday in the Rakbar lynching case has created a fresh controversy with Ramgarh BJP MLA Gyandev Ahuja saying that ‘gaurakshaks’ will challenge it in the court as “it does not say a word” about “cow smugglers” and the policemen charged with dereliction of duty.
Rakbar Khan was killed on the intervening night of July 20-21 in Lalawandi village of Ramgarh after being beaten up by a mob on suspicion of cow smuggling. Later Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria had said that the victim seemed to have died in police custody.
A badly injured Rakbar was taken to a police station from where he was shifted to a hospital after over three hours of the incident. He was later declared brought dead.
The Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court of Alwar on July 24 had ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident and referred the case to Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM), Rajgarh, for investigation.
Ahuja on Saturday termed the chargesheet as one-sided as it “fails” to mention about the suspended cops and the cow smugglers.
“This fraud chargesheet shall be taken to court by local gaurakshaks,” he said. “Some people from Ramgarh have called me to discuss legal matter, but as I am out of town, they will take the case to the court,” he said.
“The chargesheet is injustice to those innocents who have been held accused for their only mistake that they alerted the police and got the cow smugglers arrested,” said Ahuja.
The chargesheet says three persons — Paramjeet Singh, Dharmednra Yadav and Naresh — have been booked under Section 302 for murder, Section 323 (causing hurt) and 341 (wrongful restraint).
On Saturday Ashok Chouhan, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Alwar, said that as the police is under investigation, their role is not mentioned in the chargesheet.
(Archana Sharma can be contacted at arachana.g@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Pehlu Khan lynching (file photo)
New Delhi : An independent fact-finding investigation into the lynching of Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, earlier this year by cow vigilantes has exposed how police tried to “weaken” the investigation by delaying filing of the FIR and invoking IPC sections of crimes with lesser punishment.
The investigation termed the police action as “monumental inefficiency” or a “deliberate attempt to weaken the cases against the accused gaurakshaks”.
In April, Khan, a dairy farmer from Jaisinghpur village in Haryana, was lynched by cow vigilantes in Behror of Alwar district in Rajasthan. He was returning home after purchasing two cows and two calves from a Jaipur cattle fair.
The murder caught national attention and Khan became the face of protests against the spate of lynchings across the country in the name of gauraksha or cow protection.
The independent investigation also revealed that the accused named in Khan’s “dying declaration” were not arrested and police failed to defend the arrests they made in court, as five of the seven got out on bail.
In July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked state governments to act against gaurakshaks indulging in violence.
The investigation report states that it has found that “police across the states are openly flouting the Prime Minister’s instructions, especially in the states that are ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), be it Haryana, Gujarat, Jharkhand or Rajasthan.”
The report said that FIR was filed nine-and-half-hours after the incident, though the scene of the crime is only two km from the police station.
“The FIR claims that the police were informed of the attack at 3.54 a.m.” on April 2, but “according to the FIR the attack took place during 7 p.m.-10 p.m. on April 1”, and does not explain the delay, the report states.
Another major finding of the report was the invoking of IPC sections of crimes with lesser punishments among others.
“The FIR does not invoke Sec 307 of the IPC for the offence of “attempt to murder” which provides for imprisonment of 10 years to life. Instead, the FIR invokes Sec 308, which only takes cognisance of “attempt to culpable homicide not amounting to murder”, prescribing imprisonment of three to seven years,” the report said.
Also several sections of IPC which amount to criminal conspiracy, rioting with weapon, promoting religious enmity, which would have made the case stronger were ignored by police, according to the report.
“The pattern of behaviour exhibited by the police reflects either monumental inefficiency or a deliberate attempt to weaken the cases against the accused gaurakshaks, nearly all of whom are said to be connected with the BJP and its affiliates such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal,” the report read.
“Many of the accused have secured bail even though they have been charged with murder, that, too, committed in broad daylight. Their bail is even more surprising as the attackers took pictures and recorded videos of their acts which should anyway nail them without doubt,” it said.
The report states that it is hard to believe that the police could not trace the six accused named by Pehlu Khan in his “dying declaration” for five months after the incident.
“Khan named six of his attackers in a statement given to the police. But none was arrested. Police concluded that none of those named was involved in the attack. Those arrested were not named either in Khan’s statement or in the First Information Report (FIR). They got bail despite being charged with murder,” the report said.
“Their bail is even more surprising as the attackers took pictures and recorded videos of their acts which should anyway nail them without doubt,” the reports read.
The police failed to “defend the arrests” as five of the seven arrested secured bail, the report said.
As a way forward, the investigation suggests that the six men Khan named in his dying declaration should be arrested, a new FIR should be registered, and an investigation ordered into VHP and Bajrang Dal for involvement in Khan’s murder, among other measures.
The report has been endorsed by Alliance for Justice and Accountability, New York, Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi, and South Asia Solidarity Group, London.
—IANS
