Rampur (Uttar Pradesh): A Sessions Court in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur has granted bail to 15 anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protesters after the police failed to provide adequate evidence against them.
The protesters had been arrested allegedly for rioting during the protests.
The court of District and Sessions Judge, Alka Srivastava, accepted the bail plea and directed the alleged accused to furnish two bail bonds of Rs one lakh each, following which they could be released.
Investigating officer, Amar Singh, in this case, had earlier submitted two separate applications before the court in which he had said that no case under Sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) in the Indian Penal Code (IPC)could be made out against 26 out of the 34 arrested for the December 21 anti-CAA protest in which one person was killed.
More than 30 persons were arrested by the Kotwali police and sent to jail under several serious charges of the IPC, including Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly), 307 (attempt to murder), 302 (murder), 333 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt to deter public servant), 353 (assault or criminal force) and Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984. Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (CLAA) was also invoked against the protesters.
The defence counsel argued that the accused had been falsely implicated by the police and that the people were not involved in the episode.
After hearing arguments from both sides, the court granted bail plea to Samar, Anas, Raees, Rizwan, Azharuddin, Nazir, Afroz, Shavez, Shahroz, Junaid Khan, Shahnawaz, Faheem, Mohammad Abid, Sagir and Hamza.
Defence counsel Syed Amir Miyan said that two FIRs were registered in Rampur, one in the Ganj police station and the other in Kotwali police station.
“The important point is that the police did not arrest anyone from the spot and arrested people in haste at the behest of other people. The ground behind the bail is that (sections) 302, 307, 395 were dropped during the investigation. I asked why the police removed these sections and why were these sections invoked when these people were not arrested from the spot.”
Amir further said that at least 34 people were arrested in connection with the violence in December in which district administration dropped charges of murder, attempt to murder and dacoity against 26 people.
Similarly, last week, a session’s court in Bijnor district had pulled up the police for its shoddy investigation related to the December 20, 2019, protests against the CAA last year.
The district court granted bail to 48 people out of 83 after the police failed to produce any evidence of rioting, arson and attempt to murder, the charges under which these people were booked.
Scores of the CAA protesters, who were arrested by the cops, have been granted bail by the courts over the past few days as police failed to produce any evidence to link them with the offences they were charged with.
In many cases, the courts have dismissed allegations by the police saying that there was no evidence to support them.
On December 19 and 20, thousands of people had joined a protest against the CAA, National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR) in several districts of the state.
As protests turned violent at a few places, 23 persons were killed, most of them due to bullet injuries, in Meerut, Kanpur, Bijnor, Ferozabad and other places. Most of them were daily wagers.
