New Delhi, February 26 A Delhi court on Thursday ordered the three accused, who were brought to the capital after a dramatic 24-hour standoff with the Shimla police following their arrest in the hill state over the shirtless protest at the AI Impact Summit here last week, to be held in police custody for three days.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Mridul Gupta passed the order in response to a plea from the Delhi Police seeking a five-day custodial interrogation of the three accused, who are members of the Youth Congress.
The magistrate said that the accused trio must be produced in court on March 1, upon completion of their police remand.
The accused were produced in the court amid heavy security arrangements.
During the proceedings, the public prosecutor stated that Saurabh and Arbaz Khan from Uttar Pradesh, and Sidharth Avdhut of Madhya Pradesh were "hiding in Himachal Pradesh", and that they were arrested from a resort around 6:40 am on Wednesday.
The prosecutor also said that the trio was produced before a magistrate in Shimla around 1:40 pm the same day, who allowed the Delhi Police's plea for transit remand, and directed their production in the relevant Delhi court within 18 hours.
He further stated that while Sidharth designed the T-shirt displayed by the Youth Congress workers at the Summit venue on February 20, Saurabh created a WhatsApp group. Saurabh and Arbaz were present during the protest, he said.
"More than one lakh T-shirts were printed… We need to find the source of the printing, ascertain the origin and mechanism of the conspiracy, confront them with the other accused, recover the T-shirts, and identify those involved," the prosecutor said.
The lawyer for the accused claimed that the Delhi Police were "witch-hunting" by arresting those who were peacefully protesting.
"No recovery has been made, there is non-compliance with the rules. If you look at the FIR, it mentions the same sentence as in the JNU case: 'Tukde-Tukde'. What kind of precedent are we setting?" the advocate asked.
He also claimed that the arrests were part of a "political targeting" of certain individuals belonging to the main opposition party.
"They are trying to set an example for political parties," the counsel said.
The court also extended the police remand of two other accused, Ajay Kumar and Raja Gujar, who were arrested earlier and produced in court on Thursday after completing their three-day police custody.
The arrests sparked a high-voltage standoff between police teams from Delhi and Shimla, which ended after a dramatic 24 hours on Thursday morning, when the Delhi Police team was finally cleared to head back to the capital along with the three accused.
In the stalemate, the Delhi Police team was "detained" for about five hours even after procuring transit remand from the ACJM.