Rajasthan HC cites Gandhi, denies bail to 5 in Kanhaiya Lal case: ‘Terrorism a weapon of the weak’

The Rajasthan High Court ruled on Saturday that five individuals accused in the Kanhaiya Lal Teli murder case in Udaipur will not be granted bail. The court cited Mahatma Gandhi's assertion that "terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong, but of the weak". A bench led by Chief Justice Sanjay Agrawal and Justice Sameer Jain denied bail to Wasim Ali, 34, Muslim Khan, 43, Mohsin Khan, 27, Mohammad Mohsin, 34, and Asif Hussain, 25.

The court explained that the severity of the crime, the accused's alleged roles in the larger conspiracy, and the heinous nature of the terrorist act disqualified them from receiving bail. On June 28, 2022, two individuals posed as customers and killed Kanhaiya Lal Teli at his Udaipur shop in retaliation for a social media post supporting Nupur Sharma, a BJP spokesperson suspended for controversial remarks about Prophet Muhammad.

The bench quoted a poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar on tolerance and emphasized that the purpose of a judge's position is to protect the constitutional rights of citizens. The court noted that terrorism is not merely an assault on a physical body but a calculated attack on the psychological sovereignty of the nation, aiming to replace the "Rule of Law" with the "Rule of Fear".

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a charge sheet, and the trial court had framed charges against the five in 2024. They have been in custody since their arrest following the murder. The accused's legal team argued there was insufficient evidence linking them to the crime scene during the relevant period and that no messages were sent to promote enmity or hurt religious sentiments.

They also pointed out that two other accused received bail on the same charges. The court cited a Supreme Court judgment, stating that bail should be denied if there are reasonable grounds to believe the accusation is true. The NIA had completed a thorough investigation and filed the charge sheet, meeting the criteria for denying bail, though the trial was expected to continue.