The report also states that while the crime occurred between 3:30am and 6am, the police registered the FIR nearly 17 hours late, at 10:47 pm
A report released by a collaborative of several human rights organisation has alleged that the Jharkhand police weakened the case against eight gau rakshaks in the lynching of two Muslim men that took place in Latehar in March, 2016. This included a prominent BJP leader.
Despite eye witness accounts from three people and testimonies of family members, and the post-mortem reports that clearly suggest that the victims were brutally beaten with "long, hard, rod like, blunt" weapons before they were hanged, the accused acquired bail after the non-bailable section 302 of the IPC was charged.
"However, though the police acknowledged the involvement of a gau rakshak, they were quick to suggest these weren't vigilante killing but actually the result of a 'gang attempting to loot cattle'," states the report, titled Hanged by Gau Rakshaks, Denied Justice by the State.
The report also states that while the crime occurred between 3:30am and 6am, the police registered the FIR nearly 17 hours late, at 10:47 pm. The police in its FIR stated that they knew of the crime as early as 11am. "Per court documents, Investigating Officer Sub-Inspector Kumar had recorded Nizamuddin's (an eyewitness) formal statement at 9.30 am, full 90 minutes before, as the FIR says, the police first learnt of the crime. But even if we leave aside the claim by the eyewitnesses that the police had arrived on the scene at 7 am, and presuming that the police indeed learnt of the crime at 11 am, why did they wait until 10:16 pm to enter it in the General Diary," the report states.
While the FIR names only Vinod Prajapati, a prominent BJP leader in Latehar as an accused, even though witnesses Manowar and Azad Khan named eight others, Prajapati isn't even standing trial even though the other men, not named in the FIR, are.
In the chargesheet filed in May 2016, elaborate confessions from all accused, eight in total, were included where they detailed the crime, their actions hours prior to the murders, establishing that the crime was premeditated. Despite that, the report claims, the police made no effort to get these confessions recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), making them admissible as evidence.
The police also did not investigate charges of premeditated conspiracy, and left out several IPC sections which could have been invoked. These include Sec 120B (criminal conspiracy), section 362 (abduction), sec 357 (assault, wrongful confinement), sec 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapons), sec 153A (promoting religious enmity).
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