New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday sent three accused brought to the capital after a dramatic 24-hour standoff with the Shimla police following their arrest in the hill state over the shirtless protest at the AI Impact Summit here last week to three-day police custody.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Mridul Gupta passed the order on Delhi Police’s plea seeking five-day custodial interrogation of the three accused Youth Congress activists.
The magistrate said the accused trio needs to be produced in court on completion of their police remand on March 1.
The accused were produced in the court amid heavy security arrangements.
During the proceedings, the public prosecutor said that Saurabh and Arbaz Khan from Uttar Pradesh, and Sidharth Avdhut of Madhya Pradesh were “hiding in Himachal Pradesh”.
The arrests sparked a high-voltage standoff between police teams of Delhi and Shimla, which ended after a dramatic 24 hours on Thursday morning, when the Delhi Police team was finally cleared to head back to the capital along with the three accused.
In the stalemate, the Delhi Police team was “detained” for about five hours even after procuring transit remand from the ACJM.
Meanwhile, in Himachal Pradesh, the Opposition BJP met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla and demanded his intervention to order an independent inquiry into the role of the Chief Minister’s office.
“There is also an urgent need to hold a high-level inquiry by a central agency at whose behest Himachal Police tried to interfere in the investigations by the Delhi police, which had reached Shimla to arrest youth congress workers hiding in the interiors of the Rohru sub-division in Shimla,” said Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur.
Thakur, a former Chief Minister, said: “I am shocked that in a federal structure, some police officers are flouting all norms and taking orders from the government. It was shocking that even after obtaining transit remand, the Delhi Police were yet again stopped, crossing all limits.”
The BJP leaders said the entire sequence of events when Delhi Police came to arrest the three Youth Congress activists involved in staging a protest at the AI Summit clearly reflects misuse of administrative machinery at the direction of the Chief Minister’s office.
Himachal Pradesh Congress president Vinay Kumar lambasted the Central government over its action against the IYC workers. He said: “It seems as if an undeclared emergency has been imposed in the country, where no one is free to speak against the government, and no one is permitted to stage a peaceful protest.”