After the police had accused 107 protesters of rioting on December 21, a day after the violent protests against the contentious CAA in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzzaffarnagar, the police are now struggling to make their case against the accused.
As of now, 19 people have already been released on bail, either by the police or the court, owing to lack of evidence, The Indian Express Reported.
Of the 19, five people were let go by the police themselves under section 169 of CrPC due to lack of evidence.
The session court granted other ten people bail after the police were only able to prove that they had prima facie that they violated prohibitory orders and were not involved in rioting or attempt to murder.
The court on January 13, granted bail to Shaliheen, a hotel management student of Jamia Milia Islamia University. His father – Mohammed Farooque was also accused but was released by the cops under section 169. It was found that Mohammed Farooque was at his office premises during the protests.
On Tuesday, the court released four more accused.
The Sessions Judge – Sanjay Kumar Pachauri while hearing Shaliheen’s case noted that counsel for the accused has argued that accused Jabad Ali, Abbas Raja, Mohammed Farooque, Abbas Raja and Milhal were reported under section 169 CrPC by the cops before the competent authority.
The judge also observed that police were only able to prove that the other ten accused had only violated the prohibitory order under section 144.
The court granted bail to all these 15 accused who are also students. The police have also dropped all the charges against 10 accused except the one that states that they violated orders linked to section 188 of the IPC.
During the hearing, the defence counsel said that CCTV footage of the incident have not been provided to identify the accused.
The Uttar Pradesh police had lodged FIR against 107 persons and named 3,000 unidentified persons.
The FIR read that the accused were present at the Madina Chowk involved in rioting and created an atmosphere of terror. The FIR also said that these accused destroyed public property and tried to harm the police officials. As of now, the state witnessed the highest number of killing due to the protests.
