Srinagar, Sep 20: High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has rejected bail of a man who allegedly murdered a 21-year-old engineering student, Owais Bashir Malik, from Peerbagh here in 2016.
A bench of Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul dismissed bail plea of Eishan Majeed Shah who had allegedly posed as a girl before committing the heinous crime on January 12, 2016. In his bail application before the High court, Shah had sought quashing of order passed by Principal Sessions Judge Budgam ( trial court) rejecting his bail and had also sought grant of bail in his favour.
The prosecution case before the trial court is that the deceased Malik, a resident of Peer Bagh had gone missing on January 12, 2016 and his body was found lying near railway bridge at Humhama on the main Indira Gandhi Road on footpath on January 14. “There had been marks of violence on the body, indicating his murder with criminal intention”.
Upon receiving this information Police had registered an FIR under section 302 (murder) of erstwhile Ranbir Penal Code (RPC ) at police station Budgam.
During investigation, the SIT constituted a collected call detail record (CDR) of cell phone no 9796919584, belonging to deceased and on analyzing the call details it had been ascertained that the deceased remained in contact with cell no.907033115. Accordingly, the CDR of said phone number was collected and on analyzing the same, it was found registered in the name of the accused. As per tower location the sim was found used at BarzullaBaghat, Srinagar up to January 12, 2016.
During investigation police came to know that for more than one year, the deceased Malik was in contact with said cell no 9070331159 as a frequent caller. The information received by police revealed to it that the deceased was having “affair” with the girl having her phone No.9070331159. Eishan Majid, the user of the said cell phone was contacted at Barzulla.
During questioning, the accused Shah disclosed that he posed and acted like girl to deceased for one year and on January 12, 2016, Owais pressed very hard for a meeting with him and the accused agreed to meet him on the railway track of Peerbagh where he divulged to the deceased that he was posing a girl whereas he was not so.
This infuriated deceased Owais and both had a scuffle and he got better of the deceased and brought him down on the ground over the railway track and also kicked him repeatedly. This injured Owais badly and he rolled down the tracks and died on spot, and the accused escaped from spot, and on the next day he proceeded to his native village in Bandipora, where he broke his SIM Cards.
The Court dismissed bail of the accused after hearing him through his counsel and the government through its additional advocate general Mir Suhail.
“Since in the present case, the trial is in progress and if any finding or view is made by this Court while taking into account the statements of the witnesses or for that matter any finding on their credibility and evidential value at the stage of granting or refusing bail, it would seriously prejudice the prosecution case,” the court said.
The allegations against the accused, the court said, are serious and the same cannot be determined as false or true as a number of other witnesses are yet to be examined. “There is every chance that if the applicant is enlarged on bail, he may influence the witnesses as he is facing trial for commission of offence, which is punishable with death or imprisonment for life,” court said.