New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to ten people arrested for allegedly raising “anti-national” slogans during a protest against rising air pollution near India Gate on November 23. The demonstrators, many of them students, had assembled to highlight Delhi’s deteriorating air quality but were later detained after the protest escalated.
Judicial Magistrate First Class Aridaman Singh Cheema of the Patiala House Courts granted bail to Aatreya Chaudhary, Prakash Kumar Gupta, Vishnu Tiwari, Shreshth Mukund, Banka Akash, Ahan Arun Upadhyay, Satyam Yadav, Tanya Srivastava and Samir Fayis. However, the court denied bail to one of the protesters, Ilakiya.
While hearing the plea of student Banka Akash, the court observed that although police had alleged his association with a radical Naxalite organisation, no material supporting the claim had surfaced during investigation. The court further noted that CCTV footage and video clips from the protest had already been procured, and the accused persons’ mobile phones had been seized.
“No purpose shall be served by keeping the accused in judicial custody,” the court remarked, underlining the absence of evidence linking Akash to any extremist group.
According to the police, 23 individuals were arrested after the demonstration allegedly turned unruly, with claims that protesters assaulted female police personnel, used chilli spray on a constable, and raised slogans praising Naxalite leader Madvi Hidma, who was killed in an encounter on November 18. mpost