In the Tabrez Ansari mob lynching case, Jharkhand Police recently dropped murder charges against 11 accused in the case.
The police argue that according to the postmortem report, a case of murder is not made because 22-year-old Tabrez Ansari died due to heart attack and not because of head injury.
On the other hand, an analysis of the chargesheet, case diaries and statements of witnesses rebut police version.
Witness to Atrocities
According to the statement of Mohammad Masroor Alam, relative of Tabrez Ansari, he rushed to the spot on June 18, 6:30 AM as soon as he got information about the incident. Alam saw Tabrez was tied up to a poll by the angry villagers. “There a man in the crowd shouting- ‘Itna maaro ki mar jaaye’ (beat him so much that he dies)’.”
According to a report by the Indian Express, another key statement comes from Tinku Mandal, the man who shot video clips of the attack and confirmed its contents to police. He later erased the clips due to fear.
“I heard people shouting in the early hours of June 18. I saw that one person was tied to an electricity pole and people were abusing him. He was being beaten with sticks, but some were also asking others not to beat him. Ansari had a phone and was calling someone on it. Villagers asked him to call his two friends (whom they claimed were involved in an alleged theft bid and had escaped),” Mandal told police.
His statement also says that Tabrez “was forced to chant of slogans ‘Jai Hanuman, Jai Shree Ram’ .
24 People Recorded Statements
According to the report, the police have recorded statements of 24 people in this case so far.
All these statements are included in the charge sheet, as well as a preliminary statement of doctors before a post-mortem was conducted, which says that if viscera report does not show poison in it, they stated, “The head injury will be the cause of death.”
Case Diaries
It is also reported that case diaries show that police already invoked IPC Section 304 of the IPC against the accused even before the viscera report arrived from the forensic lab.
The police did not wait for the forensic report to come.
Charged Under 304 Instead of 302
Police on Tuesday has dropped the murder charge against 11 and have submitted the charge sheet in court and recommended initiation of trial in the case under section 304 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) instead of section 302 that provides for life imprisonment and even the death penalty.
Police sources say that the charge sheet was filed based on the post-mortem report. Now the case will be treated for a lesser offence under section 304 of IPC as a culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Under Section 304 of IPC, a convict can be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years which may extend to life.