Delhi Court Accepts CBI Closure Report In Disappearance Of JNU Student Najeeb Ahmed Missing Since 2016

A Delhi Court today accepted the closure report filed by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, missing since 2016.Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Jyoti Maheshwari of Rouse Avenue Courts passed the order. The Court however granted liberty to the CBI to re-open the investigation on receipt of any credible information regarding his whereabouts and directed the agency to intimate the Court accordingly.27-year-old Ahmed was a student of MSc. Biotechnology (1st Year) Jawaharlal Nehru University. In its order passed today, the Court observed that no credible information could be received by the CBI regarding the whereabouts of Najeeb Ahmed. It noted that CBI had undertaken a holistic investigation and exhausted all options. It observed that the grounds raised by his mother alleging lapses in the investigation were examined at length and stood rejected. “This Court is cognizant of the plight of an anxious mother (the protest petitioner), who has been on a quest to find out about her missing son since 2016, but the investigating agency in the present case i.e. CBI cannot be faulted for the investigation carried out. The quest for truth is the foundation of every criminal investigation, yet there are cases where the investigation conducted cannot achieve its logical conclusion, despite the best efforts of the investigating machinery,” the Court said.“This Court expresses its regret that while the proceedings in the present case end with this closure report, a closure for Najeeb's mother and other loved ones, still eludes us,” the judge said. Furthermore, the Court observed that while it is true that a perturbing incident had taken place on the previous night before Najeeb Ahmed had gone missing, but the same ipso facto is not sufficient to arrive at the conclusion that the suspects had any role to play in causing his disappearance.“In a volatile atmosphere like the hostel elections and more so in a campus like JNU, such scuffles and exchanges are not unheard of, but the same is not a sufficient basis to conclude that these young students would go to an extent to cause disappearance of another student, especially when there is no evidence on record to suggest the same,” the Court said.It added that CBI had, through the evidence collected, satisfactorily explained the whereabouts of the suspects and ruled out their involvement and that mere existence of a motive or hostility, sans any corroborative material, cannot be a substitute for proof.“Thus, the contention of protest petitioner that a serious lapse is committed by CBI, by not probing into the injuries sustained by Najeeb Ahmed, also stands negated in entirety,” it concluded. The mother claimed that Ahmed called her at around 2:30 am in the morning of October 15, 2016, and informed her that something had happened to him.Worried, Fatima left for Delhi with her second son Mujeeb. Upon reaching Delhi, she called her son again and told him she will be coming to his hostel room. Najeeb confirmed that he was still at his hostel. However, after reaching her hostel room, Fatima discovered that her son had gone missing.Fatima then found out from students that Najeeb was beaten up by members of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on October 14, 2016. After Najeeb's disappearance, an FIR was registered on October 16, 2016 but there was no mention of the assault on Najeeb.In October 2018, the Delhi High Court permitted CBI to file closure report in the case after the probe agency said that it had not found any evidence of Ahmed being assaulted a day before he went missing. Accepting the contention, the High Court had ruled that Fatima can raise her grievances before the trial court, where the closure report was filed.CBI had taken over the probe from the Delhi Police in May 16, 2017. It told the High Court that it had decided to file a closure report in the case as its investigation did not reveal any offence having been committed against Ahmed.Click here to read order

Delhi Court Accepts CBI Closure Report In Disappearance Of JNU Student Najeeb Ahmed Missing Since 2016

Nupur Thapliyal

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