‘No concrete evidence’: 6 men accused of lynching 24-yr-old freed on bail

The Jharkhand high court has granted bail to six of the 13 men allegedly involved in the lynching of 24-year-old Tabrez Ansari in June in Jharkhand’s Saraikela-Kharsawan district.

The six—Bhimsen Mandal, Chamu Nayak, Mahesh Mahali, Satyanarayan Nayak, Madan Nayak and Vikram Mandal—have been in jail since June 25.

The court said that it found no concrete evidence indicating their complicity in the crime while granting them bail on Tuesday.

Advocate A K Shahni, who represented the six, said that his clients were not named in the First Information Report (FIR) Ansari’s widow, Sahishta Parveen, has lodged in the case.

“They were also not named as accomplices by any of the witnesses. Moreover, there was no direct evidence available against them to show that they assaulted the victim.”

Parveen said that she was shocked to learn that the six have been given bail. “This should not happen. There is video footage available in the case showing how my husband was brutally beaten up. I did not name the accused in the FIR because at that time, I did not know their names,” she said.

“In rape cases, government agencies are killing the accused in encounters but in my case, which was also a henious crime, the accused are getting bail,” she added, referring to the killing of the accused in the rape and murder of a Hyderabad veterinarian.

She said that she would now move the Supreme Court for cancelling the bail.

Ansari died four days after a mob beat him up allegedly for attempting burglary in June before handing him over to police.

Of the 13 accused, 12 have applied for bail. Bail applications of the remaining six are pending for hearing.

Police initially registered the FIR in the case under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections including 302 (murder). It filed a charge sheet later under IPC’s Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and dropped the murder charges.

Police later slapped the accused with murder charges again amid much criticism amid a spate of lynchings across the country.