A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to 10 persons arrested for allegedly shouting pro-Maoist slogans and assaulting police officers during a protest against air pollution in the national capital on November 23, The Indian Express reported.
Judicial Magistrate First Class Aridaman Singh Cheema of the Patiala House Courts issued the order after hearing bail pleas filed by 12 persons, mostly students of Delhi University, who participated in the protest.
Cheema noted that videos of protest were available with the investigating agency and the mobile phones of the protesters had also been seized. “Nothing has been discovered against the accused qua [as being] the membership of radical organisations related to Naxalites,” The Indian Express quoted the court as saying.
While 10 protesters were granted bail, the petition of one was rejected and another is pending.
The matter pertained to the detention of more than 20 students from India Gate, Kartavya Path and later from outside the Parliament Street police station following the protest on November 23.
Two first information reports were registered – one against a few persons at the Kartavya Path police station and another against 17 persons at the Parliament Street police station.
The cases were initially filed under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to assault, obstruction of public servants and outraging the modesty of women. On November 25, the police also added charges pertaining to making assertions prejudicial to national integration to the FIR registered at the Kartavya Path police station.
The case filed at the Parliament Street police station was linked to an alleged scuffle between the protesters and the police. All 17 accused have since been granted bail.
The second FIR was related to the alleged recovery of pepper sprays during the protest and the purported Maoists links of the protesters. The students have been accused of using criminal force against police personnel and shouting pro-Maoist slogans at the protest at India Gate.
While some of the protesters had allegedly used pepper spray on the police personnel while being removed from the site, others had allegedly displayed posters and shouted slogans reportedly supporting Maoist leader Madvi Hidma, who was killed in a gunfight with security forces on November 18.
On rejecting the bail petitions of one of the protesters on Tuesday, Cheema said that investigation is pending “regarding the identification of other members of RSU [Radical Students Union, a banned Maoist organisation] who had conspired for transforming the protest of pollution into the support of Hidma”, The Indian Express reported.
The court added: “In view of the involvement of accused with RSU…a frontal organisation of Naxals, I am of the view that accused should not be released on bail at this stage, as the accused is likely to commit offences of similar nature, may try to inform other members of RSU.”
The protest on November 23 was mainly organised by an environmental research and action collective called Himkhand, student group Bhagat Singh Chatra Ekta Manch and the discussion forum Scientists for Society.
Scientists for Society, however, said on November 24 that it joined the protest only on the subject of pollution, and that the agitation was “not the appropriate forum” to discuss Hidma’s killing.
Also read: Why the police claim that a protest against Delhi pollution had ‘Naxal’ links
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