Judicial custody of 4 men arrested on way to Hathras extended for 90 days
Mathura: The judicial custody of four alleged Popular Front of India (PFI) activists, booked for sedition and other charges after their arrest while going to the Hathras rape-murder victim's village in October last year, has been extended for 90 days, a senior government counsel said on Monday.
Deputy SP of Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Rakesh Paliwal on Monday sought extension of the judicial custody of Atiq-ur Rehman, Masood, Alam, and journalist Siddiq Kappan, he said.
Paliwal submitted to the court that since most of the offices of the PFI and other allied organisations are based in Kerala and during the investigation there some more information has surfaced, the STF needs the accused to be in judicial custody for verification of the information.
"Additional district and sessions Judge (first) Anil Kumar Pandey has allowed the extension of judicial custody remand by another 90 days," District Government Counsel Shiv Ram Singh said.
Defence counsel Madhuban Datt Chaturvedi said he would challenge the decision in the High Court. He had opposed the extension contending that it was mandatory to release the accused after 90 days.
According to the FIR, charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act were also filed against the four men, who were accused by the state police of having links with the Popular Front of India (PFI).
The UP government had accused PFI members of instigating violence during the anti-CAA protests last year. The four men were arrested from a toll plaza in Mathura as they were heading to Hathras district to visit the victim's native village.
The Hathras incident that witnessed nationwide outrage involved a 19-year-old Dalit woman who was allegedly raped at a village in the district by four men on September 14 last year. She later died in a Delhi hospital on September 29.
She was then cremated in her native village with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night.
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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.
