A Delhi court on Thursday granted bail to four students from Ladakh who were arrested in connection with a blast near the Israel embassy in the national Capital on January 29, reported The Indian Express.
Granting the bail, Metropolitan Magistrate Dr Pankaj Sharma said that nothing incriminating was found against the accused Nazir Hussain, Zulfikar Ali, Ajaz Hussain and Muzammil Hussain. Sharma also said that the investigation did not show that the students, all in their 20s, were linked to any terrorist organisation or were a threat to society.
“Considering the age, antecedents and the fact that all the accused persons are students having roots in the society and fixed place of abode, in the backdrop of the fact that IO [investigating officer] has the custody of the relevant evidence, all the accused persons are ordered to be released on bail,” the judge said.
The students were released on a bail bond of Rs 50,000 with one surety of the same amount each, reported The Times of India.
The Delhi Police’s Special Cell had arrested the students on June 23 from Kargil, Ladakh, and brought them to Delhi. While the National Investigation Agency was conducting the inquiry into the incident, the special cell had registered a case in connection with the blast.
No injuries or damage to property was reported in the minor blast that took place on Central Delhi’s APJ Abdul Kalam Road near the Israel embassy.
On January 30, Israel’s Ambassador to India Ron Malka had said there were enough reasons to believe that the blast was a terrorist attack. He, however, also said that the incident was not surprising as they were on alert for the past few weeks following intelligence agency inputs.
The police had alleged that it was a conspiracy by Islamic outfits and that the four accused were meant to carry out terrorist attacks in Delhi and other parts of India, targeting western as well as Israeli establishments in the country.
The students’ counsel, however, had argued that Zulfikar Ali, Ajaz Hussain and Muzammil Hussain were graduates, who were in Delhi to prepare for competitive exams. The counsel also said that Nazir had been in Kargil for the last one and half years.
In its order on Thursday, the court said that the investigating officer’s report suggested that one of the accused, Nazir, was posting “highly objectionable” material on Twitter against Israel, the United States and other western countries. Another accused, Ali, was following him on Twitter.
“Nothing in the report suggests that any of the accused persons was posting any objectionable material against India,” the court noted. “As per report of the IO, Nazir is a supporter of IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] but the same is not a terrorist organisation.”
The order also said that the accused were cooperating in the investigation and had surrendered all their electronic gadgets.
Earlier, the accused had submitted before the court that the special cell’s investigation was being carried out on the basis of media reports “as certain posts were uploaded on social media by the accused persons and their mobile phones were switched off on the day the alleged incident took place”.
The special cell had told the court that while no call or messages were found on the mobile phone of Nazir, who used to post “objectionable content” on social media, an analysis of the call detail records of the other accused showed that they were present in Delhi when the blast took place. No calls or messages were found on their phones, but the police claimed the accused were using a virtual private network.
A virtual private network allows the user to create a private network on a public internet network. It shields the user’s browsing activity on the public network.
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