No evidence to show crime was committed: CBI to HC

New Delhi: A year after it was handed over the probe, the CBI on Friday told the Delhi High Court that the disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmed was only a "missing" person case as of now as it has "not found any evidence" to show that any crime was committed.

The agency, which took over the case on May 16 last year, also told the high court that presently it does not have "an iota of evidence" to arrest or take any coercive action against the nine students who are suspects in the case of disappearance of Ahmed.

The probe agency told a bench of justices S Muralidhar and I S Mehta that on an analysis of the data retrieved by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Chandigarh from six of the nine mobile phones of the suspect students, it has "not been able to find anything remotely connected to the allegations against them (the suspect students)".

"We are (at this stage) not even sure if a crime has been committed," the lawyer for the CBI told the court. The agency said three of the phones could not be examined by its CFSL in Chandigarh as two were in damaged condition and the third had a 'pattern lock' which could not be unlocked. The CBI told the court that the three phones would be sent to its CFSL in Hyderabad where hopefully they can be examined.

Taking note of the submission, the bench asked the CBI to send the phones expeditiously to the lab and directed the CFSL to examine the phones and give a report to the agency within one month of receiving the phones.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for Ahmed's mother Fatima Nafees, said that information in the CBI status reports has to be provided or communicated to her and she cannot be excluded from it.

He also sought directions to the CBI to pay Nafees Rs 10,000 for every hearing so that she can travel back and forth from her home in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi. Apart from that he also sought that the probe be monitored by the court or a retired high court judge who will minutely examine every detail of the investigation.

He also asked the court to peruse the statements of the suspects recorded by the CBI to ascertain whether the agency questioned them about their movements.