Delhi riots: Court dismisses bail pleas of 4 people in 85-yr old woman's death case

The court further said that from the videographic description of the place of incident, it was prima facie evident that the house of Akbari Begum was targeted by the riotous mob “Since a garment factory was being run by the complainant (Mohd Saeed Salmani) and his family members in their house, there was a lot of inflammatory material available in the house.


PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 07-08-2020 20:54 IST | Created: 07-08-2020 20:35 IST
Delhi riots: Court dismisses bail pleas of 4 people in 85-yr old woman's death case
Representative image. Image Credit: ANI
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A Delhi court has dismissed the bail applications of four people in a case of alleged murder of an 85-year old woman, who died due to asphyxiation when her house was torched during the communal violence in north east Delhi in February.

Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav dismissed the bail pleas of Arun Kumar, Ravi Kumar, Prakash Chand and Suraj Singh in the case of death of Akbari Begum. “A careful analysis of the statements of witnesses prima facie indicate that all the four accused persons were very well part of the unlawful assembly which had put the house of complainant on fire after committing robbery therein. “I find the 'occular evidence' of independent witnesses like Mohd Aijaz Hussain, Shakeel and Salam, which gives the clear details of the individual role of the accused persons in the incident,” the judge said in his order passed on August 6. The court further said that from the videographic description of the place of incident, it was prima facie evident that the house of Akbari Begum was targeted by the riotous mob.

“Since a garment factory was being run by the complainant (Mohd Saeed Salmani) and his family members in their house, there was a lot of inflammatory material available in the house. The house caught fire and large-scale destruction took place and the unfortunate death of Akbari Begum (mother of complainant) also took place,” it said. It further said that if released on bail the accused can threaten the witnesses in the case since they were residents of the same locality as the four people. During the hearing held through video conferencing, counsel for the accused said that Arun, Ravi, Chand and Singh were falsely implicated in the case and there was no legally sustainable evidence available against them. Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad, appearing for the state, opposed the bail applications saying the accused were not only part of the “riotous mob”, which had indulged in pelting stones, chanting slogans and committing vandalism, but was also part of the mob which had entered into the house of Begum and set it on fire after committing robbery. According to the charge sheet, on February 25, when the mob torched Akbari Begum's house, other members escaped to the roof but the octogenarian could not. She subsequently died due to asphyxia (suffocation due to inhalation of smoke) and her charred body was found on a folding bed, police had said. An FIR was registered on the complaint of her son Saeed Salmani who had a garment shop on the ground floor of the building. In his complaint, he said his four-storey building was allegedly torched by the mob who destroyed his garment workshop, burnt his house and looted jewellery and cash from them. Begum's charred body was recovered when the police officials and the fire department were able to douse the blaze, the police had said. Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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