Murder charge slapped on four men for death of Nido

The Delhi police on Tuesday told a court that they have slapped the charge of murder against the four persons, one of whom was arrested this morning, in connection with the death of a 19-year-old Arunachal Pradesh youth.

The police informed Metropolitan Magistrate Pawan Kumar that they booked accused Farman, Sunder, Pawan and Sunny Uppal under section 302 (murder) of the Indian penal Code after the postmortem report revealed that Nido Tania died due to injuries to his head and face caused by a blunt object.

Thereafter, the police moved an application for their fresh custody and quiz them for some time after the court's permission. The accused were once again produced before the magistrate, who remanded the four to j udicial custody until February 25, after the police did not seek their custodial interrogation.

Sunny was arrested on Tuesday morning while Farman, Sunder and Pawan were arrested on February 4 and produced before the court which had remanded them to judicial custody.

Initially, the police had arrested the accused under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST)(Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The accused were arrested after relatives of Nido, a BA first year student in a private university, alleged he had an

altercation with the shopkeepers at Lajpat Nagar here on January 29 after they made fun of his hairstyle, following which they allegedly thrashed him. He was brought dead in All India Institute of Medical Sciences the next day.

In a related development, the court of Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri today adjourned hearing on the bail plea of Sunder and Pawan till February 14 after their counsel requested for the same.

The duo's counsel had claimed before the court that the accused are innocent and have been falsely implicated.

"Accused Sunder and Pawan are the persons who had called the police after seeing the incident. The police have arrested them when they went to inform them about the assault," their counsel said, adding they have been arrested wrongly.