Madhya Pradesh High Court denies relief to man convicted for planting explosive while posing as Muslim

The Madhya High Court recently refused to suspend the jail sentence of one Sushil convicted by a trial court for planting explosives in a hostel room in Ujjain in 2016 while posing as a Muslim person [Sushil v. State of Madhya Pradesh]..Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla dismissed the plea after taking note of the serious nature of the offence. "In view of the aforesaid assimilation of facts and evidence and considering the serious nature of offence to create communal disturbance the occasion of Sinhast at Ujjain in order to show the involvement of Muslim organization by creating fake identity of a Muslim person and Urdu papers, this Court does not find any case for grant of suspension of jail sentence," the High Court said in an April 24 order..The Court also found that Sushil's involvement in the offence appeared to have been substantiated by his identification by both the caretaker and the manager of the hostel from where the explosives were discovered in 2016. The High Court rejected Sushil's contention that the test identification parade should be discarded since it was conducted a month after the incident..By way of background, in March 2016 a black bag containing explosives was recovered from a hostel in Ujjain after a tip-off by the hostel manager to the police. The bomb detection squad that entered the room in 2016 discovered multiple explosives, electronic circuits and Urdu notes upon opening the bag.The hostel manager had alerted the authorities after a man checked into a room with a bag and later did not return despite assuring that he would do so in some minutes. The man who checked into the room went by the name 'Sajish Khan', which was also reflected in his Aadhaar card.However, the police eventually concluded that the Aadhaar card was forged as part of an attempt to make it appear as if a Muslim organisation was involved in a plot to create discord during the Simhastha mela.Two people, Sushil Mishra and Ashish Mishra, were arrested. .Sushil, the primary accused, was convicted for assuming a false identity as a Muslim man to check into the hostel and plant explosives.During trial, the accused argued that the prosecution's case was undermined by the absence of CCTV footage. However, the trial court rejected this argument and convicted him..Sushil then approached the High Court for relief where he challenged the trial court's findings. On April 24, the High Court rejected an interim application (IA) to suspend his jail sentence. "In view of the testimony of PW Nos.1, 2 and 17, this court prima facie does not find any infirmity in the identification parade conducted by the prosecution ... In the present case, the prosecution has otherwise established the commission of offence by the appellant by identification by PW No.1 Radheshyam, care taker of the hostel and PW No.2 Prabadh Jain, manager. FSL report Exb.P/51 has proved that the seized substance was explosive. There are call details between the present appellant and the co-accused Ashish which has proved the motive," the Court said while dismissing the IA..Senior Advocate RS Chhabra and advocate Aman Arora appeared for Sushil. Advocate Ajay Raj Gupta represented the State. .[Read Order]