Paghar lynching: CID report against juvenile accused soon

Palghar (Maharashtra), July 30 (IANS) Maharashtra Police’s CID will soon file its report against 11 juveniles arrested in connection with the April 16 triple lynching of two sadhus and their driver, official sources said here on Thursday.

The report will be submitted to the Juvenile Justice Board at Bhiwandi (Thane) within a week, even as the case hearing has been fixed for August 4 before a court in Dahanu, said an official.

The 11 juveniles are accused along with 154 other adults, including 28 yet to be arrested, in the brutal mob lynching of two seers and their driver by villagers who had mistaken them for kidnappers.

This will follow the filing of two voluminous charge sheets running into 11,000 pages by the CID in the case on July 15 before Dahanu Additional Sessions Judge D.H. Keluskar.

Among other things, the charge sheet mentions how wild rumour-mongering was seen on social media with WhatsApp messages alleging that some persons belonging to a minority community would be going to kidnap people, retrieve and sell their organs, besides abducting children, etc and urging people to gather in groups.

These messages were viral in villages like Divshi, Kinhavli, Dabhadi and Gadchinchale – where the lynching incident took place late on April 16 – besides Rudana village in the neighbouring Union Territory of Dadar and Nagar Haveli.

“The charge sheet also mentions that another 28 accused are yet to be arrested as the CID probe against them is underway. Besides, there are the 11 juvenile accused,” the defence lawyer for all the 154 (adult) accused, Amrut Adhikari told IANS.

So far, the police have examined 226 witnesses while around 800-plus suspects were detained for questioning in the case, in which the government has appointed well-known Mumbai criminal lawyer Satish Maneshinde as the Special Public Prosecutor.

The CID has invoked Indian Penal Code’s sections pertaining to murder, attempt to murder, rioting, obstructing government servants on duty, besides sections of the Disaster Management Act, the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Maharashtra Police Act, the Maharashtra Damage to Public Property (Amendment) Act etc.

–IANS

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