Delhi Police files FIR against lawyer Mehmood Pracha
This report was first published in thequint.com and has been posted here without any alterations or editing. To read the original report, CLICK HERE
New Delhi: Delhi Police registered an FIR against Delhi-based advocate Mehmood Pracha where he and his associates have been accused of allegedly abusing and intimidating the police team that searched his office premises for 15 hours straight on 24 and 25 December.
The FIR has been registered by the police’s Counter Intelligence Unit under Section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) of the Indian Penal Code, The Indian Express reported.
The Quint reached out to Pracha’s office regarding the FIR. His legal firm, Legal Axis, is handling several cases of victims of the Delhi riots including UAPA accused Gulfisha Fatima’s case.
“I have not been intimated about such an FIR yet. We had called the police first on 24 December and raised our complaint for an FIR to be registered against them. My complaint against them was regarding cheating, impersonation, hacking and taking material from my computer in an unauthorised fashion. However, our complaint has not been converted into an FIR, but due to the forces involved in this affair there will be not one, but hundreds of FIRs registered against me to hide the truth from coming out.”
The police was granted a search warrant from the court on 22 December and started the search around 12 noon on 24 December. The Special Cell's search warrant issued on 22 December to the investigating officer of FIR 212/2020 reads: "Whereas information has been laid before me of the commission of offences punishable under Section 182, 193, 420, 468, 471, 472, 473, 120B and it has been made to appear to me that incriminating data comprising false complaint and meta data of outbox of email account which was used to send incriminating documents are essential to the investigation of FIR 212/20 of Police Station Special Cell, New Delhi."
The special cell team was present for 15 hours. During this time, Pracha claims he and his colleagues were manhandled. The search culminated in him moving court on 25 December to ask for a copy of the videography of the search. Pracha told the court that he was threatened by the investigating officer and one Mr Rajiv with a false case against him.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
