A court here has rejected the anticipatory bail petitions of a woman journalist and a retired Army officer charged with abetting in the suicide of Lance Naik D.S. Roy Mathew. Mathew committed suicide after he figured in an expose done by a news portal on the alleged abuse of the ‘buddy’ (orderly) system in the Army.
District and Sessions Judge M.S. Pathan rejected the petitions of Poonam Agrawal, the New Delhi-based journalist of a news portal, and retired Army officer Deepchand Kashmirsing on Saturday after he was informed that they needed to be arrested to get more information. Both filed the petitions on April 9.
The prosecution informed the court that it was necessary to impound the camera and the memory card used by Poonam Agrawal in carrying out the sting by entering an Army area illegally.
The jawan hanged himself after the video surfaced, showing soldiers, working as ‘sahayaks,’ walking the dogs of senior officers or taking their children to school. Mathew went missing on February 25 soon after the video became public. His body was found in a decomposed state in a barrack on Heig Line at Deolali on March 2. On March 27, the Deolali police registered a case against Poonam Agrawal and Kashmirsing for offences under Sections 3 (spying) and 7 (interfering with officers of the police or members of the armed forces) of the Official Secret Act. Poonam Agrawal was also booked for allegedly violating the Army rules by entering prohibited areas and conducting a shoot there without permission. She was also charged under Sections 306 (abetting in suicide), 451 (criminal trespass), 500 (defamation) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.
