Three-day judicial custody for Disha, bail may be heard today
Lawyer representing Disha told the court that there were irregularities in the case diary; police to seek activist’s custody again next week
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Friday sent climate activist Disha Ravi to jail for three days at the request of Delhi Police which will seek her custody again next week to confront her with the co-accused.
Additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) Akash Jain sent 22-year-old Ravi to three days’ judicial custody after she was produced in court at the end of five days of police custody.
The activist was arrested from Bengaluru on February 13 by Delhi Police for allegedly creating and sharing a protest toolkit backing the farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s new farm laws.
Delhi Police claimed on Monday that Ravi, along with Mumbai-based lawyer Nikita Jacob and Pune engineer Shantanu Muluk, created the toolkit and shared it with others “to tarnish India’s image”.
The two have already been granted transit anticipatory bail by the Bombay high court earlier this week.
On Friday, Ravi was brought to the Delhi court amid high security by the investigating agency which sought that she be sent to judicial custody for three days.
Additional public prosecutor (APP) Irfan Ahmed during the hearing told the court that the police had issued a notice to co-accused Shantanu Muluk for February 22 for joining the investigation and that’s when they would again question Ravi.
He claimed Ravi had been “evasive” during interrogation and shifted the blame onto the co-accused Nikita Jacob and
Muluk. Ahmed also said the police want to question her again and bring her face-toface with the co-accused in this case.
“She has shifted the blame on the co-accused Nikita Jacob and Muluk. All of them need to be confronted with each other.”
Ravi has also filed a bail application which is likely to be taken up on Saturday.
Countering the submissions by the APP, Siddharth Agarwal, representing Ravi, said that the case diary was not properly given and also not in accordance with the law. He pointed out that it was not even paginated.
A case diary is a record of daily investigations in a case.
The court, after hearing the arguments, sent Ravi to jail till February 22.
Earlier in the day, the Delhi high court directed the media and the police to exercise restraint while giving out details of the case, which dates back to earlier this month, when Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted out a toolkit detailing how to organise a campaign to support the ongoing farmers’ protest in India.
Delhi Police have sought to link the toolkit with the violence of January 26 in Delhi, and to pro-khalistani organisations.
Freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest and assembly are non-negotiable human rights. These must be a fundamental part of any democracy. #Standwith Disharavi
GRETA THUNBERG, climate activist on Twitter
Swedish
NOIDA: The air quality of Noida and its adjoining areas remained in the ‘very poor’ category despite slight improvement in wind speed on Friday, with Ghaziabad emerging as the second most polluted city in the country, followed closely by Muzaffarpur in Bihar. Greater Noida, meanwhile, saw a slight improvement.
The city’s air pollution levels have been ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ for the past 12 days. Pollution monitoring agencies, however, said they expect slight improvement in the next three days.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) data, Noida has seen 15 days of ‘very poor’ air quality index (AQI) levels and one day of ‘severe’ AQI this February so far, against six days of ‘very poor’ and no ‘severe’ AQI day last year in February.
So far this month, Noida has seen only one day of ‘poor’ category AQI and two days of ‘moderate’ air, with air quality levels mostly between ‘very poor’ and ‘severe’.
Weather analysts at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) site the reason behind the highly polluted air in the region as limited ventilation.
“The winds are calm towards the morning, evening and night, which leaves only a few hours in the afternoon for ventilation. The wind speed on Friday increased with the highest recorded yet this week at 18 kmph while the average speed has been 15 kmph. This was better than the average of 10 kmph on Thursday, but due to low wind speed towards the night and morning hours, the pollutants accumulated, leaving a very small window for good wind speed to sweep them away,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre, IMD.
According to the CPCB, the AQI of Noida on Friday deteriorated to 324. The AQI of Greater Noida improved to 304. The air quality of Ghaziabad was 352
against 325 a day earlier.
Improvement likely in next few days: Safar
According to the System of air quality and weather forecasting and research (SAFAR), the air quality is likely to improve over the next few days.
“Surface winds are low and forecasted to improve. A fresh western disturbance is likely to affect the Delhi region from February 21. A marginal improvement in ventilation and lowerend of ‘very poor’ AQI is forecasted for Saturday. AQI is likely to improve from ‘very poor’ to ‘poor’ on February 21 and further improve on February 22,” said the SAFAR statement on Friday.
NEW DELHI: Delhi over the last one week has witnessed a “never seen before” weather phenomenon for this time of the year. The temperatures have remained higher than normal, but the morning and evening hours have witnessed dense fog. IMD categorises fog into four categories based on visibility — shallow (up to 500 metres), moderate (up to 200m), dense (up to 50m) and very dense (zero visibility).
India Meteorological Department (IMD) scientists said that Delhi has been witnessing dense fog since Monday, when visibility had fallen to less than 50 metres for some hours. Delhi, however, was not alone to be covered in this thick layer of fog. According to MET officials, this fog cover has persisted during morning and evening hours above the entire Delhi-haryanapunjab region since February 11.
Scientists said that such dense fog over this region in the latter part of February was “never seen before”. IMD recordings show that till February 19, Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport had already witnessed dense fog conditions for 13 hours, as against the average of 12 hours that is usually witnessed for the entire month.
Data also shows that in December last year, Delhi had experienced only one hour of very dense fog when visibility had hit zero.
On Friday too, visibility at the Palam weather station fell below 50 metres. Other parts of the city also witnessed moderate fog.
RK Jenamani, senior scientist at the National Weather Forecasting Centre, said such a long spell of dense fog has not been witnessed at such a large region at this time of the year ever.
“This pattern of fog over Delhi and neighbouring states is unusual and has never been seen before. We have recorded dense fog over Delhi in February before, but that is only for two or three days, and that too in the first week of February. This time, the fog spell has occurred even when the night time temperature was 2-3 degrees above normal and that is unique,” said Jenamani.
Weather recordings show that Delhi has been experiencing higher than normal maximum and minimum temperatures this month. Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’S regional weather forecasting centre, said that except for four days, Delhi this February has recorded temperatures 3-4 degrees above normal.
On Friday, the maximum temperature recorded at the Safdarjung observatory, was 26.8 degrees Celsius, two degrees below the season’s normal. The minimum temperature was 9.9 degrees Celsius.
He also said that high pollution in Delhi is also contributing to low visibility. “The low wind speed is not letting the pollution particles disperse and that coupled with the fog is also hampering visibility,” Srivastava said.
Scientists also explained that the last active western disturbance over Delhi was on February 4, and such a prolonged absence, can also be a reason behind foggy mornings and evenings.