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The Allahabad High Court has rejected the bail plea of the prime accused in the Ghaziabad-based journalist Vikram Joshi murder case. Joshi was shot in the head in front of his two minor daughters when he was on his way back to his residence from his sister's house in July last year. 

The bench of Justice Rahul Chaturvedi noted that when taken cumulatively the facts of the case were such which could not rule out bail applicant, Sahnoor @ Chhotu's role as the main assailant in committing the brutal murder of the deceased journalist.

Court noted that though two persons were named in the First Information Report (FIR) initially but later on, name of Akash (the other accused) was dropped by the police during the investigation from array of actual assaulters. 

Court also took on record that all the charge-sheeted accused persons had unequivocally attributed the role of firing to Sahnoor alone and the weapon of assault was also recovered from Sahnoor's possession.

On the other hand, Sahnoor's counsel had argued before the court that though Shanoor was a named accused in the FIR but the entire prosecution case was based on the confessional statement of the other co-accused persons.

He had added that only one countrymade pistol was recovered from Sahnoor's possession and he had got no criminal motive or mens rea to commit the offence. On the contrary, another co-accused Ravi was the mastermind of the entire episode, he had contended.

Sahnoor's counsel had further averred that a few days before the day of Joshi's murder, Ravi had misbehaved with Joshi's niece and when Joshi had objected to that, Ravi had threatened to kill him. Therefore, he had asserted that Ravi had a strong motive for committing the offence.

However, court rejected these arguments and held that Shanoor's involvement as the main assailant could not be ruled out at this stage. Therefore, court rejected his bail plea. 

On July 20, 2020 Journalist Vikram Joshi was travelling with his daughters late night when they were stopped by a group of men in Vijay Nagar area of Ghaziabad. While the girls managed to run away, miscreants pulled Joshi from the bike and started hitting him and soon enough they shot Joshi in the head. Joshi died two days later.  

The whole incident was captured on a CCTV camera. The family of the journalist had also alleged that the attack was related to a complaint he had recently made regarding harassment of his niece by a group of men.

Case Title: Sahnoor @ Chhotu v. State of U.P.