PEHLU KHAN LYNCHING CASE: RAJASTHAN GOVERNMENT MOVES HC AGAINST ACQUITTAL

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PEHLU KHAN LYNCHING CASE: RAJASTHAN GOVERNMENT MOVES HC AGAINST ACQUITTAL

-SUKRITI VERMA

BACKGROUND :


An appeal has been filed by the Rajasthan Government in the High Court against the acquittal of the six accused who were prosecuted for the Pehlu Khan lynching case. In Alwar's lynching case included the attack on and the murder of a dairy farmer, Pehlu Khan.

On 1st April 2017, Pehlu Khan was returning from Jaipur to his village Nuh which is a district in Haryana. He was returning to the village after buying some cattle but was stopped by 200 cow vigilantes. Though Pehlu Khan and his son showed all the documents which said that the cattle were only for dairy farming but, in spite of that Pehlu Khan was allegedly beaten by the vigilantes and due to the injuries he died. There were his sons and some more people who accompanied Pehlu Khan and were also beaten by those cow vigilantes but they survived because of fewer injuries.

The Supreme Court then issued notices to Rajasthan as well as four more Indian states which were Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Karnataka and also to the Central Government asking for a ban on such groups of cow vigilantes.

CURRENT ISSUES :


  • On August 14, a Court in Alwar, Rajasthan emancipated all the six who were accused in the Pehlu Khan lynching case, the benefit of the doubt was given to them on the basis of the tawdry investigation and charge sheet submitted by the police in the connection with the case. The adjudication was pronounced by the Court of the Additional District Judge in Alwar. The Additional Advocate General R.P Singh said that the appeal was filed in the Rajasthan High Court on Monday.
  • Vipin Yadav, Ravindra Kumar, Kaluram, Dayanand, Yogesh Kumar, and Bheem Rathi are the six people who were accused in the case and were let off by the Court. A supplementary charge sheet was presented against Goliya and Bheem Rathi who were also accused of the crime by the police. There are three minors also who were accused and they are facing a separate inquiry by a juvenile justice board.
  • Over two months after a trial Court in Alwar emancipated the six accused in the Pehlu Khan lynching case. On Thursday, the Rajasthan government and the kin of the deceased filed two appeal petitions before the Rajasthan HC against the acquittal of the six accused in the case.
  • Hours after the Court exculpated the accused, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan Mr. Ashok Gehlot said that the state government would appeal against the decree delivered by the Court of an Additional District Judge.
  • A video of the incident had also gone viral that showed Pehlu Khan being beaten up by the mob; cow vigilantes and thrown to the ground and kicked. There were two FIRs filed in the case in which one was against the attackers that means against the cow vigilantes and the other accusing Khan and his sons with allegedly transporting cattle without requisite permissions.
  • The Rajasthan government had accounted for a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the supervision of the state’s Additional Director General of Police ( ADGP) ( crime), to identify the loopholes in the investigation and hold the individual officers who had conducted the scrutiny accountable. After all this, many serious lapses in the investigation were pinpointed by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that was constituted by the Rajasthan government.
  • It was also pointed in the reports of the SIT that the investigation officer Mr. Parmal Singh had seized the mobile phone in which the video of lynching was recorded but he failed to produce it as the evidence in front of the Court. The report further said that the officer gave a false statement before the court that he had not seized the mobile phone in which the lynching was recorded.

CONCLUSION :


Altogether, the investigating officer alone is alleged to have made 29 “ mistakes” during the investigation. When the change of the case was given to the second investigating officer then the case later also overlooked the lapses in the investigation. The third investigating officer did not record the statements of the witnesses, while the fourth one exonerated the six accused in the case without any new or solid evidence. As soon as the Crime Branch of the CID took over the case from the police, a clean chit was given to the accused on the grounds that their mobile tower location at the time of lynching was found at “ Dhami Gaushala “ and not at the place where the incident took place or at the crime scene at Behror, which gave them an  alibi (protection). This was said by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).

However, the SIT team found that the distance between the crime scene and the “ Gaushala “ was of only two kilometers, which showed the alleging negligence at the hands of the CID – CB. It also pointed out that mobile can pick up a signal from different towers if they are at such a small distance. The report given by SIT said that the six accused – Vipin Yadav, Ravindra Kumar, Kaluram, Dayanand Yadav, Yogesh Khati and Bheem Rathi – should also have been charged with dacoity, rioting, and rioting armed with a deadly weapon in addition to a murder, but important evidence was either not gathered or not presented properly during the trial .

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