A chargesheet is likely to be filed against two accused charged under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Act for their role in the Deonar dumping ground fire. Sources said the chargesheet would be filed in the coming few days.
Meanwhile, the Shivaji Nagar police said it had submitted its first chargesheet of 250 pages on July 11 in the Deonar dumping ground case against the other 13 accused, who were slapped with charges under the Indian Penal Code. Of the 13 accused, 12 have secured bail.
“The chargesheet has 250 pages and statements of 50 witnesses and photographs of the scene and location details of the accused. One of the 13 accused submitted his bail application recently,” said a police officer who did not wish to be named.
Among 500 statements submitted by witnesses, only 15 were against the accused. Taking this into consideration, the sessions court gave bail to 12 of the suspects as the chargesheet could not provide strong and clear evidence against them. The accused who got bail are Shamin Khan, Hussain Sheikh, Jai Prakash Yadav, Alibaba Sheikh, Sohel Shaikh, Shoaib Sheikh, Umar Ghani Khan, Rajesh Mahadik and Mohammed Shaikh, Feeroz Raees Khan (33), Kalam Iqbal Sheikh (44), Saida Lalu Hafizullah (46) and Vijay Kumar Gupta (32).
Sessions court judge Shridhar M. Bhosle observed that the allegations made by the police were baseless. The police in their chargesheet said that a security guard shed had been burnt down.
This, the applicants pointed out, had been added later alleging the accused had committed mischief by causing fire at the shelter with the intention to take metal wires. The applications said the section 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc) was inserted in the chargesheet to ensure that the applicants do not get bail.
