A Delhi Court slammed advocate Mehmood Pracha for raising aspersions on the integrity of Delhi Police and arguing that only Muslims were targeted during the northeast Delhi riots of 2020.
Advocate Mehmood Pracha questioned the uprightness of the Delhi Police during the hearing of the bail plea of the accused Arif. In his order passed on November 11, Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat pulled up the advocate and declined to grant bail to Arif on the grounds that an eyewitness might be threatened by the accused.
The case pertains to the gruesome murder of one Alok Tiwari, who sustained several blunt and sharp injuries near Shiv Vihar Tiraha on February 25, 2020. The victim had received 13 injuries by sharp-edged and blunt objects, the post-mortem report said. Besides, the accused is also involved in two separate murder cases that took place during the riots.
Defending his client, Pracha asserted that the northeast Delhi riots were not “not actually communal riots” but had taken at the behest of “certain political vested interests to derail the peaceful protest that was going on against the newly promulgated CAA/NRC by the central government.”
He submitted that “only the persons belonging to the Muslim community, like the applicant were targeted by the police in the aftermath of the riots and were arraigned in false criminal cases.”
The court, however, came down hard against Pracha’s comments, stating that they were not in “good taste” and that the lawyer had failed to provide any material on record to substantiate his allegations. “These are noted with immense disgust, repugnance and strong disapproval,” the court noted in its sharp rebuke on Pracha’s accusation that Delhi Police was prejudicial against the Muslims while dispensing their duty.
Coming down hard against the advocate, the court said it was Pracha who was painting the Delhi Police with a communal brush through his claims that the criminal cases in connection with the riots have been slapped upon the members of the Muslim community alone.
“The statement of counsel is not only highly irresponsible but also patently false. This court, while dealing with the cases related to the riots, has noticed that members of both the communities have been arraigned as an accused and have been charge-sheeted by the police,” the court said.
The court hailed Delhi Police, saying that they appeared to have done their job with the utmost integrity and without any communal biases. “The police seems to have done their job with the utmost integrity and certainly not on communal lines. Maybe some lapses have occurred during the investigation of these cases related to the riots but even those lapses do not give any slightest indication that the investigation was prejudicial and unfair or it was coloured by communal biases,” the court observed.
The court admonished advocate Pracha and asked him to abstain from making such “irresponsible, unwarranted and manifestly false submissions.” It said the cases it has are of very serious, grave and sensitive in nature, which are required to be dealt with in a professional manner without any communal taint.
FIRs against Mehmood Pracha for misbehaving with Delhi Police officials and for inciting communal hatred
While the court pulled up Mehmood Pracha for his baseless and unfounded allegations against the Delhi Police, this is not the first time that the advocate is in the news for all the wrong reasons. In December 2020, an FIR was lodged against him for misbehaving with the police personnel and obstructing the raids conducted by the Delhi police at his office.
Before that, another FIR was filed against him, along with a Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad, in July 2020, after the two announced in a press conference that they would be setting up a camp in Lucknow to teach Muslims and Dalits about the ‘right to self-defence’ and how to apply for a firearm licence. Despite the FIR, Pracha was seen holding a camp inside a Lucknow Mosque where he was training Muslims about how to fill our licences and acquire firearms.
