Court adjourns hearing in Seelampur violence case till tomorrow

A Delhi court on Monday adjourned for tomorrow the hearing in the Seelampur violence case.

Additional Session Judge Gurdeep Singh, while adjourning the matter, issued a show-cause notice to the jail authorities for not responding to the medical reports of the accused who were arrested after a protest in Delhi's Seelampur area turned violent a few days ago.

The counsel, representing an accused named Sajid, told the court that his client was not a part of the unlawful assembly and that his name is not mentioned in the FIR. "Influential people are not arrested because of their status even though their names are there in the FIR."

A counsel, representing another accused named Daniyal, told the court that there is no CCTV footage to ascertain that his client was involved in the violence and questioned how the police charged him under section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Judge Gurdeep Singh asked the Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) why the accused were charged under that section to which he contended that they threw throw petrol bombs at the police personnel due to which two officers sustained injuries.

The Delhi Police had arrested 14 people at the protest on December 17. Subsequently, the court sent them to 14-days judicial custody.

The protesters had allegedly clashed with policemen and vandalized three buses during the protest.

They were staging a protest against the newly passed Act, which grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.