A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to three alleged members of Popular Front of India (PFI), who were arrested for their alleged “involvement” in anti-CAA protests and the communal riots in north-east Delhi.
Metropolitan Magistrate Prabh Deep Kaur granted bail to Parvez Alam, PFI Delhi unit president, Mohammad Ilyas, its State secretary and ‘active’ member Mohammad Danish noting that the offences invoked in the FIR are bailable in nature.
The court has directed the three persons to cooperate with the police in its investigation and not to leave the country without permission of the court.
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“IO [investigating officer] has nowhere mentioned that any non-bailable offences has been disclosed or has come out during investigation till now,” the judge said.
The judge reminded that it is a settled principle that in bailable offences, it is the duty of the IO to offer bail to the accused persons at the first instance. The court directed the IO to give a written explanation with respect to his failure to offer bail to the accused persons.
The court order came while hearing State’s plea for grant of police remand for the accused.
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‘Pre-planned conspiracy’
In its application, the police said that on March 6, “specific information was received by the Crime Branch that the communal riots of February 23-23 were pre-planned and the same were hatched by one Umar Khalid, a student of JNU and his aides, all linked with different groups”.
“As per the pre-planned conspiracy, Umar Khalid gave provocative speeches at various places and appealed to the minority gathering to block roads and other public places during the visit of Donald Trump,” the prosecution stated.
“To achieve this objective, firearms, acid bottles and other dangerous articles were used. As a pre-planned conspiracy,women and children were sent to block Jaffrabad Metro Station to create riot,” it said.
Based on the technical and manual evidence collected during the investigation, accused Danish was arrested for his alleged role in the riots. Alam and Ilyas were arrested by Delhi Police on Thursday.
The prosecution had sought police remand to unearth the complete conspiracy and to identify the other persons who were involved in the funding used by PFI to carry out the riots and for verification and confrontation of bank details.