Anti-muslim slogans: Delhi Court sends four including Ashwini Upadhyay to 2 day judicial custody, two others remanded to one day police custody

A Delhi court on Tuesday remanded four persons, including advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, to two days of judicial custody in connection with the anti-muslim sloganeering incident at Jantar Mantar. The other two accused persons were sent to one-day custody of the Delhi police.Following their arrests by the Delhi police, Upadhyay, Preet Singh, Deepak Singh Hindu, Vinod Sharma, Vineet Bajpai and Deepak Kumar, were produced before duty Metropolitan Magistrate Tanvi Khurana..While the police sought police custody remand for accused Deepak Singh Hindu and Vineet Bajpai, it sought 14 days judicial custody remand of accused Ashwani Upadhyay, Preet Singh, Vinod Sharma and Deepak Kumar.The prosecutor earlier submitted that as the matter pertained to offences under Section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the Indian Penal Code.The police custody remand was sought on the ground they could get the mobile phone in which the hate speeches recovered and to get the other person involved in commission of the offence apprehended. It was also mentioned that the police custody remand was required to verify and detect the trend regarding circulation of hate speech videos regarding the said incident and for unearthing the entire conspiracy.The counsel for accused Deepak Singh Hindu opposed the remand stating that the prayer made was not justified and the investigating agency did not have any merit. He also contended that the police had no evidence to proceed against the accused Deepak Singh Hindu.“The IO in this matter has sought police custody remand for three days in order to unearth the conspiracy behind the incident and to get the mobile recovered along with identification of other accused persons. It is not mentioned whether the accused are to be taken at some place for the recovery. From the submissions and contentions itself, the time period sought for police custody remand is not justified. The same can be conducted within one day and therefore, after considering the submissions in totality, this court is of the considered opinion that one day police custody remand is sufficient for the purpose mentioned. Hence, this court finds merit in the application only to the extent that accused Deepak Singh Hindu and Vineet Bajpai be taken in police custody for a period of one day…,” the court held.For Ashwini Upadhyay, Preet Singh, Vinod Sharma and Deepak Kumar, the IO pressed for 14 days judicial custody remand to “prevent the accused persons from the committing any further offence, for proper investigation, to prevent the accused from tampering with the evidence or from threatening or influencing the witnesses in the present matter”.The Additional Public Prosecutor argued that in the present matter, despite having no permission to conduct the protest or the event, at the time when the Parliament was in session, Independence Day right around the corner and the country is struggling from the pandemic, the accused persons had called for a huge gathering wherein protocols for Covid-19 were not followed and several slogans spreading communal hatred were made.He also mentioned that the incident has been captured in various cameras and the videos become viral, spreading religious enmity. The prosecutor prayed that the accused, one of whom one was a “highly respected practicing lawyer from the Supreme Court” violated law for organising such an event.In the meantime, Upadhyay’s counsel moved a bail plea.Upadhyay’s counsel contended that he never had any intention to promote hatred or enmity within different religious communities. He questioned the fact that the matter falls within Section 153A of IPC while arguing that the accused was not even present at the venue rather he had left at around 12.15 in the afternoon and therefore, there was no ground for judicial custody remand.He also objected the same on the ground that the accused has a clean past besides being a highly respectable member of the Bar and a social reformer. The counsel for accused Preet Singh reiterated the submissions made by Upadhyay’s counsel.Preet Singh’s counsel mentioned that the accused was not present at the time of the incident and whatever happened later was not his responsibility. The Advocate for the other two accused strongly objected to judicial custody remand.The court held, “It can be observed that the investigation is at nascent stage and possibility of the tampering with the evidence cannot be ruled out at this stage. However, before proceeding to the merits of the matter, the IO has mentioned that he wishes to file detailed reply to the bail application. The court also requires a detailed reply in the matter mentioning the details of the incident and other relevant facts.”The court directed for the copy of bail application to be supplied to the IO for filing the reply. “It is already 8:50 pm. The bail application be placed before concerned court for 11.08.2021 i.e. tomorrow itself. Owing to the reasons mentioned above and considering that the bail application is pending, the accused persons be sent to JC for two days and to be produced before court concerned/duty MM on 12.08.2021,” it said.Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava for the State. Advocates Ashwani Dubey with Jalaj Aggarwal, Manish Kumar, Alakh Alok Srivastava, Rudra Vikram Singh, Karunesh Kumar Shukla, Himanshu Pathak, Gyanender Singh and Chandan Kumar Singh for Ashwani Upadhyay. Advocates Rudra Vikram Singh and Manish Kumar for accused Preet Singh. Advocates Sidharth Singh for accused Deepak Singh Hindu. Advocate Harshit Vashist for Vinod Sharma, Vineet Bajpai and Deepak Kumar.