Jawahar Bagh clash: Court acquits 40 citing lack of evidence

A district court on Friday acquitted 40 people accused of assaulting employees of the Horticulture Department at Jawahar Bagh here in March 2016. One of the accused had died during the trial.

The employees had gone for harvesting potatoes grown on the department land in Jawahar Bagh on March 16, 2016, when around 200 followers of cult leader Ram Vriksha Yadav allegedly attacked them.

Forty-four people were booked, of which 40 were acquitted by the court due to lack of evidence.

"The judge disallowed the appeal of four accused, including Viresh Yadav, considered to a close associate of principal accused Ram Vraksha," assistant government council Nand Kumar Tewari said.

Yadav and his supporters ran an illegal settlement at Jawahar Bagh in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.

At least 29 people were killed in clashes in June 2016 when the police tried to evict the encroachers from the compound from where a large cache of arms was also recovered.

On January 21 this year, a lower court had convicted all 44 in the case. They then approached the district court against the conviction.

The court of Additional District Judge (IV) Amar Pal Singh reversed the order, acquitting 40 of the accused. The pleas of Prem Pal, Rakesh Babu Gupta, Viresh Yadav and Rahul were disallowed.

Since Rakesh Babu Gupta was not present in the court, his bail was rejected. Arrest warrants were issued against him.

Sita Ram, a resident of Bareli and one of the accused in the case, had died during the pendency of the case.

An appeal against the order would be filed in an upper court against the order, Laxmi Kant Gautam, the council for the accused said.