LUCKNOW: The Varanasi court approved 14-days judicial remand of 14 people allegedly accused of holding a Roza Iftar party on a boat in the middle of the River Ganga, consuming non-vegetarian foods and throwing the bones into the holy river.
Passing an order on Thursday, ACJM-9 Amit passed the order. All the 14 accused were produced in the court under heavy police security cover. The investigating officer requested judicial remand of the accused from March 19 to April 1.
It may be recalled that the Kotwali police had arrested 14 Muslim youths, including Mohd Awwal, Amzad Ali, Mohd Samir, Mohd Ahmad alias Raza, Noor Ismail, Mohd Faizan, Mohd Ahmad, Mohd Tahseem, Mahfooj Alam, Mohd Tausif Ahmad, Amir Kaifi, Nehal Afridi, Mohd Anas and Danish Saifi of Madanpura, for holding an Iftar party on a moving boat and allegedly disposing of bones and left over of chicken Biryani in river Ganga on March 17.
They were arrested after Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha's city chief Rajat Jaiswal lodged an FIR against them under sections 298 (defiling a place of worship with the intent to insult a religion), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 196(1)(b) (promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion), 270 (public nuisance), 223(b) (disobeying public servant's order) of BNS and also section of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974.
They were identified with the help of videos that went viral. The police also submitted a report to the court, citing the boatman's statement and eyewitness accounts.
Consequently, a plea was filed to add several additional charges against the accused, including kidnapping.
During the hearing in the case, the defence counsel representing the accused persons opposed the judicial remand, arguing that their clients were innocent and there was no evidence against them.
He contended that whatever was stated in the FIR did not constitute any serious offence, and, therefore, the judicial remand should be quashed.
Prosecution officer Deepak Kumar presented arguments in support of the judicial remand, stating that the investigating officer had recorded the statements of both boatmen. They had stated that all the accused forcibly boarded the boat against their will and were threatened.
Consequently, Section 308 of BNS was added to the FIR during the investigation. The section falls under the provision of 10 years of imprisonment. Based on the evidence collected by the investigating officer, a 14-day judicial remand should be granted.
After the judicial remand was approved, the defence advocates of the accused filed a bail application.
The bail was opposed by the complainant's advocates, Shashank Shekhar Tripathi, Rajkumar Tiwari and Nityanand Rai, who argued that all the accused deliberately committed such a serious offence with the intention of disturbing religious harmony by defiling a sacred river like the Ganga and at Panchganga Ghat, where the confluence of five rivers is believed to exist.
Agreeing with the arguments of the prosecution and the complainant's advocates regarding the criminal history of the accused, the court summoned the criminal records of the accused from the concerned police station and posted the matter for the next hearing on March 23.