According to the prosecution, the beheading of Amravati’s vet shop owner Umesh Kolhe in 2022 was a pre-planned act of religiously radicalized persons and was committed because the deceased had shared a post in support of Nupur Sharma on June 14, 2022.
Advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhry, who appeared for accused Yusuf Khan, the veterinarian who visited the deceased’s shop to get medicines, argued that Khan only wanted to harm the deceased’s business and income as many Muslims were his customers and he was not part of any conspiracy meetings. There was no evidence against him, apart from some extrajudicial confessional statements from some co-suspects in the case.
However, a bench comprising Justices AS Gadkari and Shyam C Chandak disagreed with Chaudhry and noted that Khan had specifically chosen the deceased to target. “Because unlike others, he was not told to post an apology for his supportive post. Dr. Chaudhry could not justify why the use of the said words was necessary,” the bench said, referring to Khan’s provocative message.
The court held that the indiscriminate distribution of the WhatsApp message by the appellant, followed by his meeting with the co-accused, showed that the act went beyond harming business and pointed to the hatching of a conspiracy. It further noted that the situation was volatile after Sharma’s comment and that Khan, being a “literate and above all a veterinarian, was thus able to understand that delicate situation for the benefit of the general public and to maintain an orderly society, but he believed in sending his message to take revenge.”
The bench also noted that Khan exchanged 25 phone calls with a co-defendant before and after committing the crime and concluded that “those phone calls and the meeting were intended to hatch a conspiracy.”
“Considering the material available on record, it prima facie appears that a terrorist gang was formed by the accused persons led by the co-accused to avenge the alleged dishonor to their faith by the deceased by brutally murdering him and to create terror in the hearts and minds of the general public whether they supported the spokesperson’s comment or not,” the court said while rejecting the bail plea.
– Ends
#Amravati #beheading #case #Bombay #High #Court #denies #bail #vet