SC stays trial in Junaid lynching case in Harayana

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the trial in Junaid Khan lynching case as it sought response from the Central Bureau of Investigation and Haryana government on a plea seeking the transfer of investigation from the state police to the CBI.

Junaid Khan, 16, was lynched by a mob on board a Mathura-bound train in Haryana on June 22, 2017, following a row over seats which allegedly led to snowballed into religious slurs being hurled. The murder triggered nationwide outrage.

The bench of Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar stayed the trial before the court in Haryana's Faridabad and sought response on transfer of investigation to CBI on a plea by Junaid Khan's father Jalaluddin.

Jalaluddin has moved the top court challenging November 27, 2017 Punjab and Haryana High Court order rejecting his plea for handing over the investigation to CBI.

Holding that there was no substance in the plea to indicate that the investigation by the state police was tainted or shoddy, the High Court had said that there appeared no deliberate attempt to derail the investigation.

It had declined to exercise its extraordinary powers, saying that the case did not have any national or international ramifications.

Junaid and his cousins Hasim Moin and Shakir Moin were on the EMU train going from Ghaziabad to Mathura after Eid shopping on June 22.

The accused, along with around a dozen others, boarded at Okhla and ordered Junaid and his brothers to give them their seats.

When they refused, the three were brutally beaten up, stabbed and dumped at Asaoti railway station in Palwal district.

--IANS

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