The Delhi High Court on Thursday said it will wait for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to come up with forensic reports on the mobiles phones seized from nine Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students, who are suspects in the disappearance of fellow student Najeeb Ahmed last year, before passing any directions.
“Let the CFSL [Central Forensic Science Laboratory] reports come. Let a clear picture emerge. We have no option but to be patient…We have no reason to believe that they [the CBI] are slacking,” a Bench of Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice I.S. Mehta said, asking Najeeb’s mother Fatima Nafees to be patient.
Ms. Nafees wept throughout the hearing. She later said the agency was not investigating whether the police had influenced the witnesses.
Najeeb went missing from JNU on October 15, 2016, after a scuffle with some students allegedly affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) the previous night. The court had handed over the probe to the CBI in May this year but there has been no information about the 28-year-old so far.
Advocate Pallavi Sharma, appearing for Ms. Nafees, argued that the CBI had not interrogated the investigating officers who had allegedly planted an auto driver to make a statement that he dropped Najeeb at Jamia Millia Islamia.
She informed the court that nine students before the trial court had declined to give consent for a lie-detector test. She said the agency was not considering custodial interrogation of the accused. The court, however, said it was not going to supervise the agency on how to conduct its probe.
Meanwhile, the CBI said it was looking at all possible leads to trace the missing student.
The court then directed the CBI to expedite the forensic analysis of the seized electronic devices and listed the matter for further hearing on February 27.
