Court grants bail to 8 in Parliament street protest

A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to eight students arrested for a scuffle with cops outside the Parliament Street police station.

Initially, 17 persons were arrested in the case lodged at the Parliament Street police station. Of them, nine were granted bail on November 28.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Sahil Monga granted bail to the remaining eight students on a bond of Rs 20,000 each.

During the hearing, the additional public prosecutor opposed the bail, stating that more time is needed to “uncover the conspiracy” behind the political slogans hailing Madvi Hidma, and to uncover the source of funding for the students, who, he said, seem to possess expensive phones and earlier travelled to Hyderabad for a conference held by banned group, Radical Students’ Union. The students’ counsel argued that the arrested individuals were young, meritorious and had no prior criminal record. The court noted that most objections raised by the investigating officer related to a separate Kartavya Path case involving the use of pepper spray, which could not be used to deny bail in the present FIR.

The bail order emphasised that concerns about absconding or tampering with evidence could be addressed through reasonable conditions and that further custodial detention was unnecessary, as the investigation did not require incarceration and police custody was not sought by the investigating officer.

In total, 23 protesters have been arrested in two separate cases. Seventeen were detained in connection with the scuffle outside the Parliament Street police station, while six others were held at Kartavya Path police station over the alleged use of pepper spray on police officers near India Gate.