People always seek refuge in the judiciary in order to seek justice and Indian judiciary has been concerned about minorities too; however, a verdict recently made by Bombay High Court seems to malign this image of the judiciary.
Yes, that’s right! Three men who were accused of murdering a Pune-based techie were granted bail by Bombay HC because his “religion was a provocation”. I mean, really? Disgusting!
The court’s observation with regard to the case is quite shocking for not only the family of Shaikh but all of us. On Saturday, Justice Mridula Bhatkar granted the bail on observing this,
“The fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion. I consider this factor in favour of the applicants/accused. Moreover, the applicants/accused do not have criminal record and it appears that in the name of the religion, they were provoked and have committed the murder.”
Nevertheless, the court accepts that those three men had been present when the crime was done, as said by many eyewitnesses.
“It is apparent that the applicants/accused were present at the time of the incident. There are statements of the witnesses and the police officer that the applicants/accused had attended a meeting of Hindu Rashtra Sena on the same day half an hour before the actual incident of the assault.”
Ajay Lage, Vijay Gambhire and Ranjeet Yadav, all the three accused, are Hindu Rashtra Sena’s members and it was on 2nd June, 2014 that they murdered Shaikh.
As per Debajyoti Talukdar, the advocate of the accused,
“We had submitted that the accused had no other motives, such as personal enmity against the innocent victim. The bench, however, came to the conclusion that the accused were clearly provoked in the name of religion and thus committed the murder.”
Shaikh as well as Mohsin, his friend, were hit by hockey sticks at a time when they had been returning from a dinner but there was no provocation from victims. As per the prosecution, the trio was coming back from HRS meeting after the protest regarding the photos of Bal Thackeray and Shivaji that had been posted on Facebook by anonymous people.
According to reports, the ‘provocative’ speech given by Dhananjay Desai, chief of HRS, purportedly made audience lose temper and go berserk.
The family of Mohsin is saddened after the order of Bombay HC and therefore, has made up mind of moving to the SC to get justice.
In the words of Mohammad Sadiq Shaikh, father of Mohsin,
“The HC’s reason for granting bail has not convinced me. Was it my son’s fault that he was Muslim? Are provocative speeches reason enough to murder people in the name of religion? I would like to request public prosecutors, lawyers and the government to refer the matter to the Supreme Court for justice.”
Shameful and appalling!
Do you agree with the verdict of Bombay HC? Share your opinion with regard to it in the comments section below.
