Delhi Police gets 8-day custody of accused in assembly breach case

A Delhi court granted police eight-day custody of a man who breached the assembly complex, raising potential terror concerns and alleged attempted murder.

NEW DELHI

The bouquet of flowers on the assembly complex premises. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

A city court on Tuesday granted the Delhi Police eight-day custody of a man who had breached the Delhi Legislative Assembly complex to leave a bouquet of flowers in the Speaker’s car, after the police contended that the man sought to “spread chaos” and sought his 10-day custody. The police said they are also exploring a “terror” angle in the case.

The court also acceded to the police’s application seeking to take the accused to the crime spot and other states for recreating the sequence of events by covering his face, and conduct a test identification parade.

Judicial magistrate first class Kartik Taparia said, “Considering the fact that the allegations against the accused are very serious, and from the prima facie case as brought by the investigating agency, it does not appear that the accused is mentally incapacitated to not understand the consequences of his actions”.

The court noted that the accused also hired two taxi drivers to drive him home on a payment of ₹2,000.

The court also directed the police to conduct a medical test of the accused every 24 hours and also allowed the police’s plea to put handcuffs on him in view of his “hostile behaviour”.

The police, in submissions through additional public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava before judicial magistrate first class Kartik Taparia of Tis Hazari courts, alleged that the accused put the life of security personnel at risk by breaking through the iron gates and trying to run over personnel on the ground.

The prosecutor argued, “The accused rammed his vehicle into the iron gates of the Vidhan Sabha and broke the boom barriers as well. One of the CRPF head constables who tried to stop him narrowly escaped being run over by his vehicle. He caused chaos in the vicinity of the assembly. He tried to run over a guard twice without any care for the latter’s life”.

The remand plea, accessed by HT, reads, “The accused is required to be taken to various places in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh to ascertain the activities and movements of the accused…we need to know the purpose behind entering the sensitive area of Delhi Assembly”.

The plea further stated that it needed to investigate why the accused sat inside the car of a VIP on assembly premises.

Delhi Police on Monday arrested Sarabjit Singh, 37, a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit, and booked him for attempted murder, criminal trespass and obstructing public servants after he rammed his Tata Sierra through barricades to enter the assembly premises in Civil Lines. He then placed a bouquet in the Speaker’s unlocked vehicle before leaving; he was arrested within two hours in Roop Nagar.

Elaborating on the possibility of a terror angle, Shrivastava said the police were investigating how the accused entered the premises where several political leaders were present. “The sequence of events of how the accused travelled from Chandigarh in his vehicle and hired two more persons needs to be investigated,” the prosecutor said.

Police said that the accused allegedly threw his mobile phone in Punjab’s Nangal, and the same needed to be retrieved.

The prosecutor said that the accused hired two more persons, including a driver, to take him from Chandigarh to Delhi’s Vidhan Sabha and their statements, corroborating the same, have been recorded.

Singh’s counsel, Anshu Shukla, meanwhile, submitted that he was undergoing medical treatment in his home town for mental health issues and had entered the assembly “thinking it was a gurudwara”.

“He has no previous criminal antecedent and came to Delhi to look for his nephew, who was studying engineering in Delhi and had gone missing this month,” the counsel told the court.

The counsel said that the accused was neither armed nor had the intention of causing a law and order issue. Further, Singh’s sister in Chandigarh informed the police that he had been missing since April 3, the counsel said.

The court directed the defence counsel to provide documents pertaining to Singh’s medical condition to the police to verify the authenticity of his medical history.