Jaipur: As the Rakbar Khan lynching case heads to its final hearing on March 6, the Rajasthan government has appointed another Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the case.
Senior advocate Nasir Ali Naqvi, who is also handling the Pehlu Khan lynching case, has been appointed as the SPP.
Speaking to The Wire, Naqvi said, “I will be arguing the case in the final hearing. Currently, I’m going through the case documents.”
This move comes after the Alwar’s District and Sessions Judge Sangeeta Sharma denied a request by Rakbar’s family to transfer the case to another court.
Rakbar’s 73-year-old mother Habiban and key witness in his case and Rakhbar’s friend Aslam Khan (32), in an application, had accused the court of Additional District Judge No. 1 of bias.
They had stated that the accused was bring favoured by the presiding officer since the beginning of the trial.
“Recording of prosecution evidence is still going on but we have come to know that the judgment is already being written. In such a situation, we have no hope for justice from ADJ 1 Sarita Swami,” they wrote in the application.
The application filed by Rakbar Khan’s mother and his friend Aslam Khan, a key witness in the case.
However, the application was refused on the ground that the district and sessions judge has no powers to transfer a case of a
special designated court.
While transporting milch cows on foot to their home in Haryana’s Kolgaon from a village in Alwar, Rakbar Khan and his friend Aslam Khan were brutally attacked by a mob in Lalwandi in Alwar, on the night of July 20, 2018.
Rakbar was grievously hurt and succumbed to his injuries a few hours later. His friend Aslam had managed to escape the mob.
This incident was considered to be a repeat of the Pehlu Khan lynching case and the then Bharatiya Janta Party government in Rajasthan was heavily criticised for encouraging cow vigilantes in the name of ‘gau raksha‘.