The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave petitioners in the Hapur lynching case liberty to approach the trial court and draw its attention to statements made by two brothers of the victim before a chief judicial magistrate about the brutal crime allegedly committed by cow vigilantes in June last year.
A Vacation Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi told advocate Vrinda Grover, counsel for petitioner and witness Samaydeen, that instead of directing the Uttar Pradesh police to file a supplementary chargesheet, it would be “appropriate” to permit the petitioners to directly apprise the trial court about the statements made by the brothers, Saleem and Nadeem, under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure before the Hapur chief judicial magistrate on May 15.
Saleem and Nadeem are the brothers of Qasim Qureishi, a 45-year-old meat trader, who died after he took a severe beating along with Samaydeen from cow vigilantes on June 18, last year.
The duo were assaulted on the pretext that they were transporting and butchering cows.
In August, the Supreme Court had refused to buy the police version that the lynching was a “road rage” incident which turned fatal. The statements made by Samaydeen and some others before the magistrate had shown the case in its true light — a mob lynching premised on a false rumour of cow slaughter.
The video footage of the lynching and an expose by the NDTV channel in which one of the accused allegedly talked about the assault and even denying water to one of them had created a furore.