New Delhi: A local court has denied bail to eight people suspected of being involved in recent ethnic confrontations in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, claiming that the accused are well-known local criminals and that their release will intimidate witnesses. The judge further chastised the Delhi Police for failing to stop the illegal march and ordered that the police chief examine the case and penalise the personnel responsible.
Twenty persons have been arrested in connection with last month’s violence in a northwest Delhi neighbourhood during a Ram Navami procession, which injured eight police officers and a civilian. The parade was held without police permission, and the fight with members of the minority community occurred in the presence of the police.
Instead of stopping the illegal procession and dispersing the crowd, the police officers were seen accompanying it on the route, the court said.
“The contents of the FIR itself show that the local staff of police station Jahangirpuri, led by Inspector Rajiv Ranjan as well as other officials… were accompanying the said illegal procession,” the judge said.
“It prima facie reflects the utter failure on the part of local police in stopping the said procession having no permission,” he said,Senior officers appear to have brushed aside the issue, according to the report.
“It is the job of the police to ensure law and order,” Dependra Pathak, a senior officer of the Delhi police, had explained the presence of the force during the march.
“We must ensure that a sensitive situation does not deteriorate if there is a congregation. That is why we had enough police officers to cover the area and were effective in curbing the conflicts in a short period of time “On April 19, he informed reporters.
The judge ordered the police chief to investigate the situation yesterday, saying that accountability “should be fixed on the guilty officers so that such incidents do not happen in the future and the police do not fail to stop illegal acts.”
The violence in Jahangirpuri was one of many that erupted during Ram Navami, the Hindu festival commemorating the birth of the Hindu God Ram, in four states: Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.
Despite a Supreme Court injunction to stop destruction, the local authorities in Delhi destroyed a portion of the neighbourhood a few days later.
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