Noida: Advocates representing workers and activists arrested over the April 13 violence during industrial labourers’ protest have flagged inconsistencies in the dates of arrest, locations and recoveries listed across chargesheets filed by police in the sessions court.At a news conference here on Tuesday, lawyers and civil rights activists compared four chargesheets filed in connection with four FIRs registered by Phase II police station. They said different arrest dates had been recorded for the same persons across cases, and that these also diverged from dates cited in police custody remand applications.The advocates said Aakriti Choudhary’s arrest date varied across three charge sheets and related remand applications, listed variously as April 22, 27, 15 and 17. Co-accused Satyam Verma, booked under the National Security Act alongside Choudhary, was picked up by UP police in Lucknow on April 17 but is shown as arrested from Phase II police station on April 19 in the chargesheet. Similar discrepancies, they said, appeared in the arrest dates recorded for other co-accused Shrishti Gupta, Manisha Choudhan and Rupesh Roy.“Police cannot be casual with the chargesheet, which is one of the most important documents that will decide the fate of those incarcerated. Instead of presenting evidence of their involvement in inciting violence, they have tried to label ‘Marxist ideology’ as their crime,” Supreme Court advocate Choudhary Ali Zia Kabir said.Kabir also cited location inconsistencies, saying the chargesheet placed Himanshu Thakur in Noida on April 10, while his phone location records in the case diary showed he was at his home in Delhi at the same time.
Widespread arson was reported during April 13 industrial workers’ protest in Noida
Similarly, Choudhary, Gupta, Choudhan and Roy are described in the chargesheet as present in Noida on April 13, committing arson and vandalism, even though they had been arrested by UP Police at 7.35 pm on April 11 and sent to district jail the following day, the advocates said.Questions were also raised over recoveries cited by police. Choudhary’s phone, the chargesheet states, was recovered from her bag near a park in Nimmi Vihar close to Phase II police station on April 26 — yet her phone’s last recorded location was Botanical Garden metro station on April 11. Activists asked how she could have hidden her bag and phone nearly 10 km from the metro station while already in police custody following her April 11 arrest.
Family members and relatives of workers, who were detained by police, during a protest at Jantar Mantar on April 30
Yogendra Yadav, national convener of the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, alleged the case had been fabricated. “The activists have been named in nearly a dozen FIRs just to ensure that the process becomes the punishment for them,” he said.
