A day after the Jharkhand high court granted bail to six of the 13 men allegedly involved in the lynching of 24-year-old Tabrez Ansari in Saraikela-Kharsawan district in June, Ansari’s wife has said she will approach the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the bail.
Expressing her shock on the court’s order, Sahishta Parveen, Ansari’s widow said, “In rape cases, government agencies are killing the accused in encounters but in my case, which was also a heinous crime, the accused are getting bail.” She was referring to the encounter killing of four accused in the rape and murder of a veterinarian doctor in Hyderabad.
The Jharkhand high court granted bail to the six men on Tuesday, saying that it did not find any concrete evidence indicating their complicity in the crime.
The six—Bhimsen Mandal, Chamu Nayak, Mahesh Mahali, Satyanarayan Nayak, Madan Nayak and Vikram Mandal—have been in jail since June 25.
The lawyer of the six accused, advocate A K Shahni, said his clients were not named in the First Information Report filed by Parveen. “They were also not named as accomplices by any of the witnesses. Moreover, there was no direct evidence available against them to show that they assaulted the victim,” he said.
Parveen said, “This should not happen. There is video footage available in the case showing how my husband was brutally beaten up. I did not name the accused in the FIR because at that time, I did not know their names.”
“I will now move the Supreme Court for cancelling bail of the accused person,” she said.
Ansari died four days after a mob beat him allegedly for attempting burglary before handing him over to police.
Police initially registered the FIR in the case under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections including 302 (murder). It filed a charge sheet later under IPC’s Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and dropped the murder charges.
The police later added the murder charge in the case after much criticism over the spate of lynchings across the country.
Of the 13 accused, 12 have applied for bail. Bail applications of the remaining six are pending for hearing.
