Palghar lynching: Maharashtra CID’s final report holds 2 minors guilty of murder, rioting offences

Sandhya Nair | TNN | Updated: Aug 9, 2020, 06:31 IST

Two seers and their driver were lynched in a Kasa village in Palghar district on April 16

MUMBAI: The state Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Friday filed a final report against two of 11 minors for involvement in the April 16 lynching of two seers and their driver in a Kasa village in Palghar district. Police ruled out a communal angle in the lynching and said in its two chargesheets filed last month that the murders were a fallout of rumours of a child-lifting gang operating in the area.
The report filed before the juvenile justice board, Bhiwandi, held two minors guilty of offences of murder, attempt to murder, rioting, public mischief (for circulating rumours) among others.
Eleven minors from Gadchinchale village in Kasa, where the lynching took place, were arrested. They are at the Bhiwandi remand home and are aged 12-17.
Their advocate, Amrut Adhikari, said the minors have been in the remand home for over 90 days. “Those who have no case against them cannot hold back them in the remand home for so long. They should be sent home,” Adhikari said.
CID also filed the third charge-sheet before Dahanu sessions magistrate M V Jawale. It deals with mob violence and ruled out a communal angle.
The third charge-sheet named 47 accused, including 18 of 28 tribals not named in earlier charge-sheets. All 47 accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 307 (attempt to murder), voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant in discharge of duty and rioting among other Indian Penal Code sections.
The CID had on July 15 filed two charge-sheets, running into around 10,000 pages, against 126 accused. The adults arrested is 154, of which 28 were not charged earlier.
A total of 226 witnesses have been examined and 808 suspects were detained.
The Supreme Court had on Thursday decided to scrutinize lynching case chargesheets and sought a report on action taken against policemen in whose presence the lynching took place.
Six cops were suspended and 35 from Kasa police station transferred. The superintendent of police, when the lynching took place, Gaurav Singh, was also sent on compulsory leave.