HOPE SC stays trial, to look at plea for CBI probe

Court will examine Junaid’s father’s petition against an order by the Punjab and Haryana high court that declined to transfer the case to the CBI

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the trial in the murder of 16-year-old Junaid Khan, who was allegedly lynched on a train between Delhi and Mathura last year. The move came after a plea by Junaid’s father seeking a CBI investigation.

A bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and M Shantanagoudar agreed to hear the father, Jalaluddin’s, petition against an order by the Punjab and Haryana high court, which had in November last year declined to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Junaid was stabbed to death on June 22, 2017 on a Mathura-bound train when an alleged argument over a seat turned violent. Junaid’s family has described the incident as a hate crime and alleged that he was killed because he was a Muslim. Junaid was accompanied by his brother and two other people from his village when he was killed.

The teenager was returning home to Khandawli village after shopping for Eid and had boarded the train from Delhi’s Sadar Bazar.

The accused called Junaid a beef-eater before attacking him, according to members of Junaid’s family. The case is pending before a trial court in Faridabad and statement of witnesses were being recorded.

Senior advocate RS Cheema, appearing for Junaid’s father, contended that there was subversion in the investigation and undue haste was shown by the police in charging the accused under milder sections of the Indian Penal Code.

According to Cheema, out of the six people who had formed an “unlawful assembly” and attacked Junaid, only one was charged with murder. The rest, he argued, were only booked for causing injury, hurt and uttering words with the attempt to hurt someone’s religious feelings. “They should have been charged with provisions related to hate crimes,” Cheema argued.

The high court had rejected the plea for a CBI probe, saying that the police investigation in the case was proper.

The CBI, too, had expressed the inability to investigate, saying that a charge sheet had already been filed.

The 400-page charge sheet was filed on August 23, 2017. It said that two eyewitnesses, who were not Junaid’s relatives, were present in the coach but did not see the 16-year-old being stabbed.

Cheema told the Supreme Court that Jalaluddin had approached the high court before the trial began. He argued that the attackers boarded the train separately and formed a group to assault Junaid, implying that there was a conspiracy to kill him.

Jalaluddin has said in his petition that the police did not mention the close association the six assailants had with each other, and that the first statement of his other son, who was with Junaid on the train, was not correct and had been edited arbitrarily.

THE HIGH COURT HAD REJECTED THE PLEA FOR A CBI PROBE, SAYING THAT THE POLICE INVESTIGATION IN THE CASE WAS PROPER