Cong slams govt over detention of protesters demanding clean air

A Delhi court on Monday deferred pronouncement of its order to December 4 on framing of charges in the alleged land-for-job case involving RJD chief and former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, his family members, and several others.

Special CBI Judge Vishal Gogne was hearing the case filed by the agency against Lalu Yadav and others over their alleged involvement in the case.

The matter will now be taken up on December 4, when the court is expected to pronounce its decision on whether there is sufficient evidence to frame charges.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed chargesheets against Lalu Yadav, his wife and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, their son Tejashwi Yadav and others in connection with the alleged scam.

Last month, the charred body of a UPSC aspirant was found in his rented flat in North Delhi’s Timarpur. The Delhi Police initially suspected that the victim, Ram Kesh Meena, 32, died in a fire sparked by a cylinder blast. As the probe unfolded, police found he was murdered allegedly by his girlfriend, her ex-boyfriend and another person.

The trio were arrested two weeks after the crime. The Delhi Police are now planning to carry out a forensic gait analysis to bolster their case.

According to the police, CCTV footage from the night of the incident has emerged as a key piece of evidence. The footage in question had shown three people, with their faces covered, entering the building. After 39 minutes, one person walked out. At 2.57 am, a woman, along with another person, was seen leaving the building. The fire occurred shortly after their departure, police had said.

A senior Delhi Police officer said that though gait analysis has been used multiple times unofficially, it’s rare to present it as evidence in court. “We use it to zero in on a list of suspects. But usually, it’s corroborated with other sets of evidence which are to be presented to the court. This (the UPSC murder case) will be one of the rare times when it would be presented to the court,” the police officer said.

In a major security operation in Faridabad, a team from the Jammu and Kashmir Police recovered 350 kg of explosives suspected to be ammonium nitrate, along with an AK-47 rifle, a pistol, three magazines, 20 timers, a walkie-talkie set and ammunition from a rented accommodation at Dhauj village. A doctor from Jammu and Kashmir was also arrested during the operation, said police.

A Faridabad police spokesperson said members of the city police were also present during the operation.

The recovery followed the arrest of Dr Adil Ahmad Rather, a Kashmiri doctor tracked down to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly pasting posters supporting the banned terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed in Srinagar on October 27. 

In a press conference on Monday afternoon, Faridabad Police Commissioner Satender Kumar Gupta shared that during questioning, Rather disclosed information that led police to Dr Mujammil Shakeel (also referred to as Mujahil Shakil or Muzammil Shakeel), another doctor from Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir employed at the Al-Falah Hospital in Faridabad. 

Shakeel, who had rented the house in Dhauj about three months ago, was arrested, and the cache was seized from his residence in a coordinated raid on Sunday.

The Faridabad Police Commissioner clarified that the material was ammonium nitrate, not RDX as initially reported in some parts of the media.