SrinagarThree out of the four persons, arrested for beating five Kashmiris, including women, in New Delhi’s Sunlight Colony last week, were granted bail on Tuesday even as the victim family questioned Jammu and Kashmir governments commitment of ensuring safety and justice to the victims.
A group of 40-50 people surrounded the five siblings including three sisters and two brothers on May 10 and beat them up. They would have lynched them had the media not arrived at the scene, Syed Muzaffar, father of the siblings, told Kashmir Observer.
He said that on Monday, a group of almost 60 lawyers appeared before a local court which was hearing the bail applications of the four out of nearly 50 people arrested for assaulting the Kashmiris.
Even lawyers shouted slogans of send back these Kashmiri terrorists, he said. Three out of the four arrested persons were granted bail on Tuesday.
On top of it, state officials called us and asked us not to take up matter any further in media, he said, adding, They should have ensured that Delhi police arrested the culprits and they dont get the bail, he said. “And why only four and not all the fifty people, who assaulted my children, are not arrested, he added.
After the assault by the mob, police filed a case and launched a probe following which four persons, including a lawyer was arrested.
The victims said they were surrounded and beaten by the mob, some of whom were armed with hockey sticks. A disturbing video of the incident uploaded on Facebook showed an injured woman on the road, identified as Azra Muzafar, slumped against a car trying to shield herself as women and men surround her menacingly wielding sticks. She is shrieking in pain and as the clip ends, blows and shrieks can be heard.
The police registered the case on the basis of a complaint filed by one of the Kashmiri women in which she was manhandled and abused.
The victims maintained that they were targeted because they were Kashmiris.
One of the victims had said that some of the members of the mob were shouting slogans like Kashmiri terrorists should be sent back.
My sisters were abused and beaten up. I have a broken left hand and one of my guests who had come to visit us was also attacked. It was a planned attack and the accused were carrying hockey sticks, one of the males attacked had said.
In a series of tweets, the former chief minister Omar Abdullah urged the intervention of the Union home minister: @HMOIndia @rajnathsinghPlease have this investigated urgently & bring the guilty to book.
Mehbooba Mufti, the incumbent Chief Minister, spoke to Delhis chief minister Arvind Kejriwal about the alleged assault on a group of Kashmiris in the Indian capital.
An official at the Delhi chief minister’s office however was quoted later that during the telephonic conversation, Kejriwal told Mufti that in the capital, law and order, and police directly come under Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Later Mufti talked to Rajnath Singh and brought to his notice cases of harassment of people from state at New Delhi and Himachal Pradesh.
The Chief Minister requested the Union Home Minister to issue necessary instructions to the concerned agencies so that the people from the State, who are studying, doing business or working in other parts of the country, do not feel inconvenienced and they carry on their activities without any interference, read an official statement issued here later.
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