Delhi Riots: High Court Denies Bail To Accused In Suleman Murder Case After Considering Eye Witnesses Statements & CCTV Footage

Considering the statements of eye witnesses and CCTV footage on record, the Delhi High Court has denied bail to a man accused of being part of a mob that had killed one Suleman during the North East Delhi riots.

Justice Mukta Gupta denied bail to Ashish in FIR No.58/2020 registered at Karawal Nagar Police Station under Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, etc.), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons), 341 (wrongful restraint), 365 (abducting with intent to confine person), 395 (dacoity), 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

It was the case of the prosecution that Suleman and his brother Sanober, belonging to Muslim community were thrashed and beaten. While Sanober received severe injuries but managed to save his life, Suleman was mercilessly beaten and then thrown in the drain by the mob, taking him for dead.

Sanobar in his statement had said that he along with Suleman, Aditya, Mamur, Arsad, Arif, Kasim, Sunil and others were working with the contractor Yusuf and after the riots, around 40 people standing with rods and sticks in their hands, caught them.

He stated that the persons asked for their IDs and when they showed IDs they told Sunil to run away.

Thereafter, Sunil had stated to the mob that he had come along with Sanobar and Suleman and will go with them after which people had assaulted and pushed him while catching hold of Sanobar and Suleman thereby injuring them with iron rods and sticks.

Pursuant to this, Sanobar got unconscious and later he got to know that Suleman, who was also beaten in his presence, had died.

While denying bail, the Court took note of the fact that the version of Sanobar was also stated by Sunil.

"Both Sanobar and Sunil identified the petitioner as one of the persons in the CCTV footage who was behind Suleman, who was beaten, taken away and thrown in the drain," the Court said.

It ordered thus:

"Considering the statements of the eye witnesses as also the CCTV footage, this Court finds no ground to grant bail to the petitioner."

Recently, a Delhi Court had framed charges against 4 men for killing Suleman, observing that the common objective of the unlawful assembly, of which the accused were part of, was to attack and kill members of the Muslim Community.

The Court took note of the statements given by Sanober and Sunil who categorically gave an account of the series of events which had occurred after they were attacked by the mob.

Both had identified all the four accused persons to be present in the mob attacking them after CCTV footage was shown to them.

Noting that the accused persons were seen prodding and pushing Suleman with sticks in the video footage and the still photographs placed on record, the Court had opined that it was difficult to say that the common object of the un­lawful assembly was not to kill anyone.

Case Title: ASHISH v. STATE GOVT. OF NCT OF DELHI

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