The Allahabad High Court has granted bail to two individuals accused of firing shots at Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s vehicle during the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections of 2022.
FIR
Justice Pankaj Bhatia, while granting bail to the accused, noted that Sachin Sharma and Subham Gurjar were not named in the First Information Report (FIR). The court emphasized that they were implicated in the offense solely based on the Investigating Officer’s opinion after reviewing CCTV footage.
Furthermore, the court observed that the evidence connecting the applicants to the offense appeared weak prima facie. It pointed out that crucial material, such as verifying the identity of individuals seen in the CCTV footage, seemed to be absent from the case diary.
The court also highlighted that in the three statements recorded thus far, the names of the accused had not surfaced, and neither the victim nor the occupants of the car identified the accused.
Intervention Application
However, the victim, through legal representation, filed an intervention application before the court. In the application, it was alleged that one of the accused, after being granted bail in 2022, had publicly expressed no remorse and refused to apologize.
Regarding this, the court stated that the interview seemed to be a speech or media interaction by one of the applicants and lacked evidence suggesting a direct threat to the victim.
Gunshots were fired at AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s car in Pilkhuwa of Hapur district, Uttar Pradesh, during the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections of 2022.
