Rajasthan High Court orders appeals of Ashok Gehlot govt and Pehlu Khan’s relatives be clubbed together in 2017 lynching case.

Source – indiatoday.in

The Rajasthan High Court on Friday ordered both the appeals — the Ashok Gehlot-led government in the state and Pehlu Khan’s relatives — against the acquittal of the six accused be clubbed together in related to 2017 Pehlu Khan lynching case.

Earlier, the Ashok Gehlot-led Rajasthan government filed an appeal in the Rajasthan High Court challenging the acquittal of six accused in the lynching of Pehlu Khan in 2017. Pehlu Khan’s family had also challenged the verdict of the ADJ court which had acquitted six accused in the Pehlu Khan case on August 14.

On Friday, the hearing in the Pehlu Khan case in the Rajasthan High Court was held. At the hearing, the Rajasthan High Court ordered that the appeal of Pehlu Khan’s relatives and that of Ashok Gehlot Government against the verdict of the ADJ Court be clubbed together.

Earlier in August, the Alwar court in its final verdict maintained that it was not clear as to who shot the video as the police failed to seize the mobile phone through which the incident was filmed.

The court said even the pictures submitted as evidence failed to prove the crime and hence the ADJ court cannot accept them as evidence.

It also questioned how Pehlu Khan knew the names of the accused since he was from Mewat and the accused were from Alwar. The court further asked why the case was registered against another accused in the first FIR.

It said the accused were not identified and the statement of Pehlu Khan was not recorded following the proper norms before his death.

“The court did not consider the video of the mob lynching as admissible evidence. It was treated as a bogus video. The police did not get FSL investigation of the video footage done. The children of Pehlu Khan could not identify the accused even inside the cour. On this basis, the court acquitted the six accused today,” Hukum Chand, defence counsel in the Pehlu Khan case, told India Today TV in August.

Pehlu Khan, a 55-year-old dairy farmer, from Haryana’s Nuh, was beaten up by self-styled cow vigilantes near Behror in Rajasthan on the Delhi-Alwar highway in April, 2017. He succumbed to his injuries at a private hospital two days later.