Allahabad High Court grants protection to Muslim man accused in lynching case with legal controversy at the forefront.
In a major development, the Allahabad High Court has granted protection from arrest to Zaki, brother of Farid alias Aurangzeb, a Muslim man who was lynched in Aligarh. This after the death of his brother was booked under charges of dacoity and assault. The incident saw an outcry among the public who condemn this incident that shared the tension between mob violence and communal tensions in India with many issues of legality associated with it.
Aligarh Lynching
Farid alias Aurangzeb, 35-year-old, was lynched by locals in Aligarh in the wee hours of June 18, 2024, over an alleged accusation of attempting dacoity at the house of a Hindu trader. Incident happened in Mohalla Mamu-Bhanja in Aligarh, when suspected thief Aurangzeb came face to face with locals.
He was subjected to a mob lynching, rained with lathis, kicks, and punches with brisk mercilessness. It involved an alleged mob of Hindu men attacking him, identifying a Muslim and further enflaming the attack. Later that night, he succumbed to his injuries. A video cropped up on social media of an assault taken place in the public space.
FIR Against Zaki and Other Accusations
Then, an interesting twist came: after continuous eleven days of lynching, an FIR was filed by the Hindu lady Laxmi Rani Mittal who targeted Aurangzeb’s house for dacoity against Aurangzeb, Zaki, and five others. The FIR, which registered on 29th June, accused Aurangzeb and his companions of doing dacoity and assaulting Mittal with intent to outrage her modesty. Framing of charges under Sections 354-read with outraging the modesty of a woman-and 395-dacoity-under the Indian Penal Code.
This FIR, with the deceased Aurangzeb as an accused in it, triggered outrage from larger civil society, activists, and opposition parties. They spoke about how there was a delay of 11 days in filing the FIR and how questionable the latter’s credibility and timing were when already on the day of lynching, Aurangzeb was killed.
This means that a case was also lodged against Zaki-who is the brother of one of the victims, Aurangzeb-along with charges pressed against some unidentified persons based on the complaint by Mittal. Zaki and his counsel also argued that the FIR was malafide and had been instituted as a counter to the case which was registered over lynching of Aurangzeb. “The complaint by Mittal had not taken into consideration necessary facts, that Aurangzeb was already dead, whose post-mortem report said he died on June 18, a day after the attack,” Zaki’s counsel said.
Orders of Allahabad High Court
Division bench of Allahabad High Court consisting Justices Siddhartha Varma and Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra heard the petition filed by Zaki against the FIR registered against him and his late brother and passed an order as under on September 9, 2024: “No coercive action” shall be taken against Zaki till the next hearing of the petition by the court, or the submission of the charge sheet in the case, whichever is earlier.
The court passed this order on the ground that the case of Zachi needed a considered scrutiny, and there existed serious doubts over the genuineness of the FIR. The bench also went on to clarify that the protection accorded to Zaki was contingent upon his cooperation with the investigation.
It had directed the issuance of a notice to the police authorities so that the state government was able to file its response to the petition. While passing said order, it granted a temporary shield for Zaki from arrest, and his legal battle would continue without immediate detention.
Conflicting Accounts, Legal Implications
The case against Zaki and his dead brother Aurangzeb is ridden in a mess of conflicting statements. Mittal’s FIR accuses Aurangzeb and accomplices of entering her house on June 18 night, committing dacoity, and beating her up. She said that Aurangzeb tried to flee but slipped on the stairs and hurt himself before being caught by locals.
However, Zaki’s version is completely contradictory to the police case presented by Mittal. Zaki said, “Aurangzeb had just prepared rotis and was on way home when locals stopped him and, after identifying his faith, attacked him with the intention to kill.” In Zaki’s complaint lodged on the same day of lynching, ten persons were accused of murder and mob lynching, while another ten-twelve unidentified persons have also been mentioned.
According to Zaki’s FIR, the lynching mob included accused persons, inter alia, named as Ankit Varshney, Chirag Varshney, Sanjay Varshney. In his statement, Zaki mentioned that the mob had attacked Aurangzeb out of religious enmity because “before attacking, they explicitly identified my brother as a Muslim.”.
These contradictory accounts have thus placed the two sides in a curious legal stand-off, with one accusing the other of grave charges. This video that surfaced on social media corroborated Zaki’s version of events on issues of mob violence, while Mittal’s FIR presented a different sequence of events in which the locals who apprehended Aurangzeb sought to justify their actions.
Political and Communal Fallout
It is in this backdrop that the case of lynching in which Aurangzeb was killed, and subsequent legality have kicked up a political storm in Aligarh and the country. To add fuel to fire, local BJP MLA Mukta Raja has come out in open support for the accused Hindu men who lynched Aurangzeb, thereby adding more fuel to the communal cauldron in the region.
The ruling BJP government has been assailed by critics for not doing enough to contain the menace of mob violence and the role of its party in increasing the polarisation on religious lines. The naming of Aurangzeb, who was already dead, in the FIR and the delay in filing a complaint have invited accusations of institutional bias and police complicity in shielding perpetrators of mob lynching.
The incident has again raised a chorus for stern laws against mob lynching and stringent measures to protect the minority communities from religiously motivated violence. Demands vary from seeking justice into the incident of Aurangzeb and his family to a call for systemic reforms so that such incidents would not occur in the times to come.
Conclusion
The relief given to Zaki is temporary and only part of the ongoing legal battle over Aurangzeb’s lynching and the dacoity charges against the accused. Quite obviously, till the final disposition, both sides will argue their evidence, and the court will have to weigh the facts carefully against conflicting claims.
It underlines the deep communal divide in India amidst growing disquiet over the spate of mob violence against minorities. While intervention by the court can promise some justice, the wider ramifications from this case for society and politics are liable to resound across India for a long time.
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