[Police flogging Muslim men in Gujarat] Video quality poor, only 4 of 14 cops can be identified: Magistrate to Gujarat High Court

The videos showing the incident of the public flogging of Muslim men in Kheda district in October last year are of poor quality and thus, not all the policemen and victims could be identified from it, a Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) has told the Gujarat High Court..Only four cops - two officers, who assaulted the victims, one who caught held their hands at the time of assault, and one who was sitting in front of the crowd on a chair - could be identified, the CJM has stated in his report.The flogging of these men was recorded by the policemen clothed in civil dress, and uploaded on social media platforms. In the video, cops could be seen tying the petitioners to a pole and beating them with lathis. Amid all this, a crowd was watching the entire scene, cheering the cops on and chanting various slogans including "Vande Mataram."A division bench of Justices AS Supehia and MR Mengdey had last month ordered the CJM of Nadia district to examine the pen drives and other electronic evidence related to the video of the policemen thrashing the Muslim men in full public view on October last year.Notably, five members of the Malek family, who were beaten up by policemen from Matar Police Station in Kheda district for allegedly hurling stones at a crowd during a Navratri event in Undhela village, petitioned the High Court seeking contempt of court action against the policemen for violating the Supreme Court's guidelines issued in the case of DK Basu v. State of West Bengal, which mandate a proper procedure for arresting an individual.They approached the High Court through Senior Advocate IH Syed.The Court had then sought response from the State on the plea. .However, the report submitted by CJM Chitra Ratnoo before the High Court last month states that the video clips and the photographs, mostly the screenshots of the videos and social media posts, were not clear and therefore, it was difficult for the judge to identify all the 14 policemen in the clips. Instead, only four cops could be identified, it has been stated."Watching all the videos it could be made out that the videos were captured by some of the people standing in the public, which is controlled back by the police personnel in uniforms," the report says.The CJM has further stated that the victims could not identify all the policemen but only four cops.As per the report, the four cops identified in the videos by the victims are:AV ParmarDB KumavatKanaksingh Laxmen SinghRaju Rameshbhai Dabhi"The face is not shown or the side face can be seen in the videos and the videos are captured from the sideways, which cannot be zoomed in and are blurred in enlarging pixels due to the quality of the videos. The pictures are blurred on zooming in and videos are taken from a distance, so it is difficult to ascertain the persons amongst the respondents as well as applicants in the videos and the photographs," the CJM report states.Further, the CJM in his report has concluded that of the five men, who were thrashed by the cops in full public view, only three could be identified.