New Delhi: The Allahabad high court has provided protection from arrest to a Muslim man in Aligarh who was booked under charges of dacoity and assaulting a woman to outrage her modesty days after his brother was lynched by a group of Hindu men who accused him of attempting dacoity.
Farid alias Aurangzeb, aged 35, died on the night of June 18 after he was assaulted by local men in Aligarh after they allegedly suspected him of trying to steal from a Hindu trader’s house.
Eleven days after that incident of ‘mob lynching’, an FIR was lodged against Aurangzeb, his brother Zaki and five others by a Hindu woman named Laxmi Rani Mittal in whose house the alleged theft was attempted.
In the FIR, Mittal alleged that Aurangzeb and his companions committed dacoity in her house on the day he was ‘lynched’.
The FIR against Aurangzeb, Zaki and others was lodged under Sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 395 (dacoity) of the Indian Penal Code on June 29.
That the police waited 11 days to lodge an FIR and included the name of the deceased Aurangzeb as an accused triggered widespread condemnation against it as well as the ruling BJP, whose local MLA Mukta Raja publicly came out in support of the Hindu men who were accused of killing Aurangzeb.
Now, on Monday (September 9), a division bench of the Allahabad high court said that “no coercive action” shall be taken against Zaki till the next date of listing or till the submission of chargesheet in the case, whichever is earlier.
A bench of Justices Siddhartha Varma and Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra added that the relief would be subject to Zaki’s cooperation in the investigation.
The court passed the orders while hearing a petition filed by Zaki challenging the FIR against him, his deceased brother and others.
Zaki’s lawyer told the court that the FIR against him was lodged by Mittal with ‘malafide’ intent in response to the case lodged regarding Aurangzeb’s “mob lynching”.
Zaki’s counsel submitted before the judges that the June 29 FIR had overlooked important details, such as the fact that Aurangzeb had already died on June 18, with his post mortem conducted a day later.
Additionally, Zaki pointed out that Mittal’s husband had been arrested on charges of Aurangzeb’s murder but that this was not mentioned in the FIR lodged by her. In her FIR, Mittal claimed that her husband Mohit was at home during the incident.
The court noted that the case required consideration and directed that a notice be issued to police authorities. It also allowed the state government to file a response to the petition.
In her FIR, Mittal claimed that Aurangzeb suffered injuries after slipping on a staircase while trying to hurriedly escape from her house after committing theft.
This contradicted allegations that he died after being thrashed by the group of accused men.
On Zaki’s complaint, an FIR was lodged on June 18 against ten persons – all of them Hindu – and ten to 12 other unidentified persons under charges of murder, unlawful assembly, rioting with a deadly weapon, wrongful restraint and committing a crime with common intention.
In his complaint, Zaki said that the assailants had identified his brother as a Muslim. A video of the accused persons surrounding Aurangzeb at a small crossing in a locality in Aligarh and thrashing him with lathis and assaulting him with kicks and punches was widely shared on social media.
According to the FIR lodged at the Gandhi Park police station on Zaki’s complaint, Aurangzeb was returning at around 10:15 pm on June 18 after making rotis, when he was confronted by some locals near a by-lane (gali Rangrezan) in mohalla (locality) Mamu-Bhanja.
They attacked him Aurangzeb the intention to kill and “identified him as a Muslim”, said Zaki in his complaint. He described it as a case of “mob-lynching”.
The persons accused of murdering Aurangzeb were identified as Ankit Varshney, Chirag Varshney, Sanjay Varshney, Rishabh Pathak, Anuj Agrawal, Monu Pathak, Pandit Vijaygarhwala, Kamal Bansal, Dimpy Agrawal and Rahul Agrawal.
Mittal’s police complaint contradicted Zaki’s FIR and the video that emerged.
According to the FIR lodged on her complaint on June 18, Mittal was in her kitchen, while her husband and children were resting in another room and her father-in-law had gone to the temple. At around 10:15 pm, she alleged that a group of five to six men climbed up through the stairs and entered her house. One of them carried an illegal country-made pistol while two others were armed with knives, she claimed.
Holding her at gunpoint, the men robbed a gold necklace she was wearing. “They threatened to shoot me if I tried to make any noise,” claimed Mittal, who added that one of the accused men placed his hand on her chest indecently.
The intruder led her to another room and demanded that she hand over all the money she had, Mittal claimed. She alleged that the robbers forced her to hand over Rs 2.5 lakh in cash that was kept in an almirah and some gold and silver jewellery.
The man then handed over the cash and the jewellery along with his pistol to his companions and told them he would be back with more items, Mittal claimed in her FIR.
Mittal further claimed that four intruders stood near the staircase for a while and upon hearing sounds of people outside, escaped with the looted items as they feared getting caught.
The intruder who had accompanied her to the other room also tried to escape but slipped on the stairs and tumbled down, said Mittal. The man suffered an injury on his head and his limbs, she claimed.
Mittal said that some locals caught hold of the man, who identified himself as Aurangzeb, after they heard her cries for help. According to her FIR, Aurangzeb allegedly told the local men about his companions who escaped. They had come to the locality to conduct a recce for a dacoity, alleged Mittal.
Those named in the FIR were Aurangzeb, his brother Zaki, Akarbar, Nawab, Shamim, Ashu paan wale ka ladka (paan vendor’s boy) and two others.
Mittal further said that after locals apprehended Aurangzeb, her father-in-law, who returned from the temple, dialled 112, following which police arrived at the scene and took away an injured Aurangzeb.
