A court here has rejected the bail plea of an accused from whom the mobile phone of a man allegedly killed during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots was recovered, saying the finding was “circumstantial evidence” for the murder charge and “concrete evidence” for the offence of dishonestly receiving property stolen during dacoity.
The court, meanwhile, allowed the bail plea of eight others in the case, saying “concrete and sound evidence” was not found against them.
Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala was hearing the bail pleas of Himanshu Thakur, Sahil Babu, Tinku, Sandeep, Vivek Panchal, Pankaj Sharma, Sumit Chaudhary, Prince and Ankit Chaudhary.
According to the prosecution, the accused were part of an unlawful assembly formed on February 25 and 26, 2020 that bludgeoned a man, named Mursaleen, to death whose body was found floating in a drain near Johripur Tiraha.
“The recovery of the mobile phone of the deceased from Himanshu Thakur and the evidence in the form of call detail record (CDR) to show its use by his family members subsequent to the killing of Mursaleen is a kind of circumstantial evidence in respect of the charge under section 302 (murder) read with section 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) of the Indian Penal code,” the judge said in an order passed on Monday.
ASJ Pramachala said the recovery was also “concrete evidence” for the charge under section 412 (dishonestly receiving property stolen in the commission of a dacoity) of the IPC.
“Even section 412 is punishable up to life and hence, that charge cannot be treated as a lighter charge…In these circumstances, keeping in view the severity of the charges and severity of the punishment provided for the same as well as the additional evidence… his bail application is rejected,” the judge said.
The judge said the evidence against Thakur was not the same as the co-applicants for bail and other accused who were granted bail earlier.
