Charges are framed against Anmol Ratan

A Delhi’s fast track court on Monday put on trial JNU student Anmol Ratan for allegedly raping and threatening a 28-year-old fellow student in the university hostel.

The court also heard the argument on his bail plea and decided to order on the next date of hearing.

Additional sessions judge Devender Kumar Sharma said that there was sufficient ground to frame charges against Ratan for the offence punishable under Sections 376/506 of IPC.

The court then fixed October 7 as the next date of hearing. During the hearing, advocate Rajiv Mohan and Satbir Singh Gill, appearing as defence counsel for the accused, argued that their client should be released on bail as he was falsely implicated in the case. “The matter is politically motivated. The girl had put a status on her Facebook page that she wanted to watch a movie and was looking for its CD. A number of students contacted her and told that they had CD of the movie. But she chose only Anmol Ratan, which raises question,” the defence counsel argued.

They further argued that the prosecutrix had deleted a lot of WhatsApp messages and she had shown only a few messages to the police. The police is yet to receive a forensic report on it from the CFSL. The move of the defence was opposed by the prosecution.

Ratan is currently in judicial custody. The court kept the bail plea pending as the woman was yet to be examined as prosecution witness and the forensic report was also awaited. The court had earlier taken strong exception to Delhi police’s failure to file forensic reports on time “despite repeated warnings.”