The Latehar lynching case refers to an incident that took place on March 18, 2016, when 32-year-old cattle trader Mazloom Ansari and his business partner’s 11-year-old son Imtiaz Khan were mercilessly beaten and hanged from a tree by cow vigilantes in Jhabar village.
8 people, Manoj Kumar Sahu, Mithilesh Prasad Sahu, Pramod Kumar Sahu, Manoj Sao, Awadhesh Sao, Arun Sao, Sehdav Sao and Vishal Tiwari were accused in the case. In December 2018, a Jharkhand court has convicted all 8 accused. But recently Vishal Tiwari moved the Jharkhand High Court seeking suspension of sentence and grant of bail.
Advocate Shadab Ansari who appeared for the victim along with Senior Advocate A Allam explained the arguments presented by Tiwari saying, “Their main argument was that the witness/informant did not name the accused persons in the FIR. They improved their version in court. They were not eye witnesses.”
Meanwhile, the victims’ lawyers argued that all the eye witness had identified the accused persons. Advocate Ansari adds, “They were connected through phone before the incident and after the incident, and their location was shown at the place of occurrence. All these were proved through their call details and cell tower locations. Moreover, the oxen were recovered from their possession on the basis of their confessional statement.”
The court could not be persuaded to grant bail and the application was dismissed as withdrawn.
.jpg "Farmers declare FCI Bachao Divas on April 5")
