New Delhi: A Delhi court on Saturday remanded three Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) activists to judicial custody till August 2 for allegedly instigating people and putting up posters with proactive message against Congress MLAs in their area.
Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi unit secretary Dilip Pandey, Ram Kumar Jha and Javed Ahmed were produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Sheetal Chaudhary who sent them to 14-day judicial custody.
"I find enough material on record which could substantiate the prosecution claim that it can create enmity among different classes/communities," the magistrate said.
The court has kept pending their bail pleas. Pandey, Jha, a printing and logistic incharge, and Ahmed, a designer, were arrested yesterday for allegedly instigating the people and putting up posters with proactive?message against Congress MLAs in their area.
Seeking 14 days judicial custody of the three, the public prosecutor argued that the police have to conduct further investigation in the case to find out who was behind it.
Prosecutor Nidhi Bala said the investigation is at an initial stage and the purpose of their arrest was that they were influential people and they should not influence witnesses or tamper with evidence.
She told the court that Ahmed had sent an e-mail to Pandey and Jha with the copy of the design of the poster to which Jha had replied with okay. Thereafter, Ahmed sent another e-mail of the final design of the poster to them to which nobody replied so this was understood that the design was accepted. Opposing the arguments of the prosecutor, advocate Rahul Mehra, who appeared for the accused, said when Pandey did not reply to the alleged mails of Ahmed, this showed no case was made out against him and there was no material against him.
He submitted that lots of banners were printed during the general elections and it was the mistake on the part of Ahmed and Jha that they did not properly see and pay attention to
these posters. He added that there was no bad intention behind it and they had not done it intentionally. Mehra said AAP has always tried to bring together several communities and there was no deliberate attempt to incite any communities. He argued that police were not showing them the FIR and this was an attempt to conceal the facts.
"It is just an attempt to drag AAP into this and to malign the image of the party at the behest of somebody which everybody knows," he argued. The counsel also said one Amanatullah Khan, a volunteer of AAP and a resident of Okhla, had put up the posters and even confessed to it but the police still arrested these volunteers. To this, the prosecutor said they have to find out if his role was there or he has just come forward to save AAP leaders.
The prosecution also produced call records which suggested Ahmed was in touch with Pandey and Jha on the night of July 16. Pandey was also in touch with Amanatullah Khan, it said. Two other AAP volunteers, Ajit Dubey and Mukesh Jha, who were also arrested, were granted bail from Jamia Nagar Police Station.
According to the police, the Congress MLAs alleged the posters, along with proactive?message, have been put up by AAP to divide the community. "Posters have been put up in the assembly constituencies of the three Muslim Congress MLAs, calling them 'traitors of the community', with rumours about a group of Congress MLAs being ready to support BJP government in Delhi gaining ground.
"The posters call for large-scale protests outside the residences of Mateen Ahmed, Asif Mohd Khan and Hasan Ahmed on July 16", the officer had added. They were booked for the offences under sections 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups) of the IPC.
