A Delhi court on Tuesday pulled up the city police for “harassing” a victim of the north-east Delhi riots, by repeatedly serving him notice and asking for documents in relation to the investigation in his case, while noting that his grievance “seems to be real and not illusory”.
No acknowledgement
The applicant, one Mohd. Salman, represented by advocate M.R. Shamshad, had moved a plea before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Arun Kumar Garg, seeking directions to the Investigating Officer (IO) in the case. Mr. Salman said that documents had already been submitted by him to the police on two previous occasions but no acknowledgement was being given to him by the IO upon receipt of the documents. In his plea, he also said that he is being forced to disclose the details of his new landlord.
During the course of the hearing, SHO of Khajuri Khas police station and the IO told the court that they just wanted to record the statement of the new landlord of the house where Mr. Salman and his family had taken shelter after his home in West Karawal Nagar was allegedly attacked by a mob which threatened to kill him and his family.
“… the court is unable to comprehend the purpose of recording the said statement, when the aforesaid landlord is not a witness of the alleged incident… apprehension of complainant regarding the alleged harassment by the IO and SHO Khajuri Khas in the name of further investigation, prima facie seems to be real and not illusory,” the order read.
Unbiased probe
“Joint Commissioner of Police, Eastern Range, is directed to file a comprehensive status report of further investigation in the present case under his signature within a period of two weeks from today and shall ensure that investigation in the present case is carried out by the IO in an unbiased manner so as to find out the real culprits and not to harass the complainant and the witness unnecessarily,” the order further said.
The court also rapped the Delhi police for being “silent about the status of the investigation” being carried out by the IO in the present case.
While noting that the report received from the DCP (North-East) does not disclose the exact status of further investigation in the case, “The IO is directed to produce the case diary, whereupon the IO has produced the case diary alongwith draft chargesheet in the present case”.
The judge said that it “shows that the probe carried out in the case is far from satisfactory in as much as steps taken by the IO” for collection of various investigation material.
The court also added that no plausible explanation has been given by the police for not collecting CDRs of all the accused in the case. As per case records, Salman’s complaint where he had named the accused in the mob was clubbed with another unnamed complainant into a single FIR. Thereafter, court ordered the FIR’s separation but since the said accused persons were already being probed, the same FIR was allowed to operate.
This story first appeared on thehindu.com