The Delhi High Court on Tuesday refused to grant regular bail to Kattar Hindu Ekta WhatsApp group members, who are accused in a case of the recovery of a dead body from a drain.
The single-judge bench of Justice Mukta Gupta was hearing bail applications of Ankit Chaudhary aka Fauzi and Rishabh Chaudhary aka Tapas, who have been charged under Sections 147/148/149/302/201/ 120B IPC.
On March 1, 2020, a dead body was found in the nala and it was found to be that of a male aged 15, height 5’ 5” and there were injury marks on the back of the head. The body was in a decomposed state and was shifted to RML Hospital, where the doctor declared him brought dead.
As per the post-mortem report, the cause of death was by head injury and its complication due to blunt force effect. Shahbuddin, the father of the deceased, identified the body by the clothes worn by him. During the course of investigation, blood samples of the parents of the deceased were taken and as per DNA analysis report, the deceased was proved to be the biological son of Shahbuddin and Ameer Bano.
Advocate Jitendra Bakshi, appearing on behalf of Ankit Chaudhary aka Fauzi, submitted that there was a contradiction in the testimony of the eyewitnesses and cellphone records of the petitioner. He added no CCTV footage shows the involvement of Ankit.
Advocate Rakesh Kumar, appearing for Rishabh Chaudhary aka Tapas, submitted that Rishabh was not a member of Kattar Hindu Ekta WhatsApp group whose members are implicated in FIRs concerning the recovery of several dead bodies from drains.
“It is evident that the three witnesses have clearly identified the two petitioners with the other accused who were present at the spot and were looking at the IDs of each and every person and on being identified from the other religion, the said passers-by were assaulted. Since the accused have been named in statements of the witnesses, no TIP was required to be performed of the accused,” the court said.
“As regards the call detail record location of the petitioners is concerned, the petitioners are residing in the vicinity of the place of incident and hence the tower location of the petitioners at the relevant time would not be sufficient to conclude that the petitioners were not present at the spot for the reason it may also be possible that the petitioners left their mobile phone at their residences,” it added.
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