North East Delhi violence: Court grants bail to 8 accused, rejects plea of one accused in murder

New Delhi: Delhi's Karkardooma court has recently granted bail to eight accused in a case related to alleged murder during the North East Delhi riots of February 2020.
The court has dismissed the bail plea of one accused in the matter. The court on Monday allowed the bail pleas of Sahil Babu, Tinku, Sandeep, Vivek Panchal, Pankaj Sharma, Sumit Chaudhary, Prince and Ankit Chaudhary.
The court granted bail to each accused on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 30,000 and a surety bond in the like amount.
However, the court rejected the bail plea of Himanshu Thakur in view of the circumstantial evidence against him.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Pulastya Pramachala said, "The recovery of the mobile phone of the deceased Mursalin from Himanshu Thakur and the evidence in the form of call detail record (CDR) to show its use by his family members subsequent to the killing of Mursaleen, is a kind of circumstantial evidence in respect of the charge under section 302 (murder) read with section 149 (unlawful assembly) of IPC."
The court said that the recovery was also "concrete evidence" for the charge under section 412 (receiving property stolen in the commission of a dacoity) of the IPC. This offence is punishable up to life and hence, that charge cannot be treated as a lighter charge.
"In these circumstances, keeping in view the severity of the charges and severity of the punishment provided for the same as well as the additional evidence, his bail application is rejected," the judge said in the order passed on April 3.

On the other hand, while allowing the bail pleas of the eight accused, Regarding the bail pleas, the judge said, "I do not find very concrete and sound evidence against the applicants in respect of alleged charges till this stage and since, all the material witnesses have already been examined, on the grounds of parity as well, it will not be appropriate to keep the applicants behind bars till the conclusion of the trial."
As per the prosecution, the prime accused Lokesh Solanki, was accused a member of the 'Kattar Hindu Ekta' WhatsApp group.
After an investigation, Delhi had filed a supplementary charge sheet in September 2020 against nine accused persons for the alleged murder of Hashim Ali. In this supplementary charge sheet, th name of the WhatsApp group had surfaced.
According to the chargesheet filed by the Delhi police, this group was created on February 25 and its alleged aim was to take revenge for the troubles faced by Hindus.
A case in sections related to rioting, conspiracy, and unlawful assembly including others was registered at the police station Gokalpuri police and after investigation a chargesheet against the accused persons. (ANI)