Woman hit and drag case: Court rejects Ashustosh Bharadwaj's bail plea

A Metropolitan court on Thursday dismissed the bail plea of Ashutosh Bharadwaj, an accused in the hit-and-drag case that killed a 20-year-old woman in the national capital.

Metropolitan Magistrate Sanya Dalal said considering the gravity of the offences, the fact that the investigation is at an initial stage and the offences alleged against the accused are exclusively triable by sessions court, this court is not inclined to grant bail.

Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava alleged Bharadwaj had misled the investigation by stating co-accused Deepak was driving the car.

"There is a thin line of difference having knowledge and subsequently having knowledge. We are investigating the case...When he (Bharadwaj) was a free man, he misled the investigation. He can mislead again in future," the APP said.  According to the prosecution, Bhardwaj had wrongly claimed co-accused Deepak Khanna was driving the car, while it was found during the investigation that it was another accused Amit who was at the wheel.

Raising questions about the "conduct" of Bharadwaj, the APP said though the accused was under the legal compulsion to inform the police, he instead misled the prosecution.

"It shows that the accused Bharadwaj might be in agreement with other accused persons," he said.

The prosecutor said it is never our case that Bharadwaj was inside the car but that he provided the vehicle involved in the accident to another co-accused who did not possess a driving licence.

The prosecution also informed the court that live location or google time line was yet to be ascertained to establish the role of each accused in the case.

Bharadwaj's advocate Shilpesh Chaudhary contended the accused was not present in the car at the time of the incident and all alleged offences were bailable in nature.

He said Bharadwaj had cooperated with police after the alleged incident and helped them arrest two other co-accused.

Police had arrested Deepak Khanna (26), Amit Khanna (25), Krishan (27), Mithun (26), and Manoj Mittal in the case on January 2.

Later, they zeroed in on Ashutosh, who was arrested four days later.

All accused were remanded in 14 days judicial custody on Monday.

Anjali Singh (20) was killed in the early hours of the new year day after her scooter was hit by a car, which dragged her for more than 12 kilometres from Sultanpur to Kanjhawala.