A hearing was held on Thursday in the Punjab-Haryana High Court regarding the arrest of Congress MLA from Firozpur Jhirka, Maman Khan after his name cropped up in the investigation into the Nuh riots. During the hearing, the High Court issued a notice to the Haryana Government regarding the demand of SIT by higher officials for investigation.
The next hearing in the case will be held on 19 October. On protection from arrest, the High Court has issued an order to Khan to appear in front of the lower court to explore legal options and get bail. Despite being issued a notice twice by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Haryana Police, the Congress MLA has not appeared for questioning. Now that he fears arrest, he has now reached the High Court. MLA Khan has completely rejected all the allegations against him in court and has also asked for extra security.
There has also been a demand to constitute a high-level Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the cases registered after the incidents of violence that took place on 31 July in Nuh district. Maman Khan has alleged in the High Court that it is “common knowledge” that a blame game began after the “unfortunate incident” of violence in Nuh. State ministers, including Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and State Home Minister Anil Vij, he claimed have begun blaming the Opposition to “divert people’s attention” from the government’s failure to stop the incident. Khan went on to say that their statements blaming Congress MLAs for this incident had also appeared in the media.
Elaborating on the reasons behind framing Khan in the High Court, his lawyers Arshdeep Singh Cheema and Ishan Khetrapal argued that his recent public statements leave no doubt that the investigation is being hijacked. The investigation is being directed in a “pre-planned direction with a purpose” they said. “The State Government is now attempting to put the blame on political opponents by falsely implicating the petitioner in this case as it failed to control the outbreak of violence and is blamed by all parties for mishandling the situation.” Cheema then mentioned that Khan was nowhere close to the locations where the violence broke out. “The petitioner was not present in the violence-affected areas. He was at his Gurugram residence. The petitioner also provided evidence of its activities including CCTV footage and bills to support its claims,” Khan’s counsel said. Cheema also sought instructions to form a high-level SIT comprising senior officers to investigate violence-related cases. So far, Nuh Police has arrested 316 people for inciting Nuh violence. Police have registered 60 FIRs in this case. In this, 49 cases have been registered for inciting violence and 11 for spreading rumours on social media. Currently, 314 people have been arrested for violence and two have been arrested for spreading misinformation over social media.
