Syed Khalique Ahmed | India Tomorrow
New Delhi, August 16 | It was crowdfunding that helped the family of Pehlu Khan to fight the court battle for the last two years.
Pehlu Khan, a dairy owner and cattle rearer in Jaisinghpur village of Nuh tehsil in Mewat region of Haryana, was badly beaten by cow vigilantes on April 1, 2017, in Behror town of Alwar district in Rajasthan when he was returning in a truck with cattle he had purchased from a cattle market in Jaipur. He succumbed to his injuries after three days on April 4, during treatment in a hospital.
Pehlu’s son, Irshad Khan, told Indiatomorrow.net(ITN) over phone from his village that it were his well-wishers and sympathisers who contributed their small amounts that together came to over Rs. 12 lakh.
However, it is a different matter that he lost the court battle in Alwar District and Sessions court which acquitted all the six accused for want of evidence on Wednesday.
Irshad said that the money he got through contributions by people from all over the country was used to pay advocate’s fees and meet other expenses like travelling from his village to the court and other places in connection with the case.
On being asked how did he get the idea of crowdfunding to raise money for the legal fight, he said it was poet Imran Pratapgarhi who circulated the bank account of her mother on social media appealing people to contribute to her account to help the family fight the court case.
Irshad, whose family business is dairying and rearing cattle, said that he also had to sell out two of his buffaloes for Rs. 80,000 to fight the court case.
He said that two of his younger brothers worked with some private transporters at monthly salary of Rs. 5,000-6,000 that was used to meet the family expenses.
Coming down heavily on the police investigators in the case, he alleged that the police, under political pressure, weakened the case that enabled the accused to get aquittal. BJP was in power in Rajasthan when the incident happened. The Congress came to power in 2019. He alleged that video footage of the beatings by the accused was not produced in the chargesheet in a proper legal manner. “The police also did not conduct mandatory identification parade in such cases that has to be done within a month of the incident”, he said.
Irshad said that the identification parade was conducted after two years. “How can I identify the accused after such a long gap when they are produced before me among a crowd of 30 others. Do you try to recognise people when you are under atttack or would you try to defend yourself and those with you”, said Irshad. “Had the identification parade been conducted within a month, it was possible that I would have identified all the accused”, he said.
He asserted that he would now move the Rajasthan High Court against acquittal. “If I don’t get justice from the High Court, I will take the case to the Supreme Court”, announced Irshad, who is eldest son of Pehlu Khan. “I will fight for justice for my father till my last breath”, he said.
Advocate Qasim Khan, who fought the Pehlu Khan’s case, talking to ITN, alleged that poor investigation by the police resulted in fall of the case in the court and discharge of the accused.
He said that Pehlu Khan in his “death declaration” had named six persons as accused. Pehlu remembered their names because the accused were taking the names of each other while beating him.
In the first chargesheet filed by Behror police on May 31, 2017, the police named 15 persons, including six named by Pehlu.
However, when the case was handed over to Crime Branch’s Criminal Investigation(CB-CID) after the media widely reported the case, CB-CID dropped the names of the six named by Pehlu, from the chargesheet, and charged nine persons who were not named by Pehlu Khan. “This is the first time when the investigators weakened the case as both the chargsheets were contradictory to each other”, said the advocate.
The second thing was that the investigators did not conduct identification parade of the accused in front of the four witnesses within a month of the crime. The witnesses included Pehlu’s two sons and three others.
The third thing that contributed to the fall of the case was that the investigators did not go for verification of of the video footage of the beatings in a Forensic Science Laboratory(FSL). According to the advocate, video footage or CCTV footage are not admissible as evidence in court without FSL verification. “As the video footage submitted in the court did not have FSL verification report, the court refused to accept it as evidence”, said Qasim.
The fourth loophole in the investigation was that the police did not seize the mobile phone equipment that was used for taking video of the incident. The argument of the police was that the mobile phone belonged to a police informant and they did not seize the phone to maintain secrecy required in such cases. According to the advocate, a magisterial statement of the mobile phone owner under Section 161 of CrPC should also have been taken to strengthen the case but police avoided it. It also weakened the case.
“It was on these ground that Judge Dr. Sarita Swami of the Alwar District Court gave benefit of doubt to the six accused and acquitted them”, said the advocate.
“We will now challenge the acquittal in the Rajasthan High Court”, said the advocate.
