Court questions delay in arrest; grants bail to accused

new delhi: A Delhi court on Monday granted bail to an accused in one of the north-east Delhi riots cases, holding that his arrest, several days after the incident, on the basis of having been named by a beat constable was prima-facie a "weak kind of evidence".

The court noted that the beat constable, if he was present at the time of riots at the spot and had identified the accused as one of the rioters, then the least he should have done was to report about him at the police station which he did not do. Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav granted bail to Shamim on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 20,000 with one surety of like amount, in a case related to vandalising a public school in the Dayalpur area by the rioters.

During the hearing of Shamim's bail plea, his counsel Abdul Gaffar, argued that the incident in this matter took place in Dayalpur area on February 25 but the FIR was registered on March 5 and the accused was arrested on March 16.

The advocate further said that the accused has been arrested in the matter merely on the basis that he has been named by Constable Piyush in his statement on March 7. There is no CCTV footage where Shamim can be seen rioting in the area and the investigation in the matter was complete and he was not required for any custodial interrogation, the lawyer claimed.

Special Public Prosecutor D K Bhatia, appearing for the state, opposed the bail application saying the delay in recording of FIR can be explained by the fact that the riots in the area were so rampant that there was a curfew-like situation in the area.

The court also granted bail to Sonu Kumar and Shyam Patel in a separate case of rioting on the grounds that there was nothing on record such as independent witnesses, CCTV footage or any video recording to show their presence at the spot or that they were involved in rioting and chanting slogans against the other community.