A Delhi court on Monday allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to close the case of former JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, who went missing on October 15, 2016.
While accepting the CBI’s closure report, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Jyoti Maheshwari of Rouse Avenue Court granted liberty to reopen the case if any evidence was found in the matter.
CBI had closed its probe in the case in 2018, after making several failed attempts to trace Ahmed. The national agency then filed a closure report before the court after getting permission to do the same from the Delhi High Court.
Fatima Nafees, mother of Najeeb Ahmed, had challenged the CBI’s closure report before the Rouse Avenue Court. Terming it a ‘political’ case, the Counsel appearing for Nafees argued that CBI had succumbed to the ‘pressure’ of its ‘masters’.
Ahmed was a student of M.Sc Biotechnology at JNU, who had gone missing from the Mahi-Mandvi hostel of the university on October 15, 2016, following a scuffle with some students allegedly associated with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on October 14, 2016.
However, the hostel warden confirmed seeing Najeeb leave the university premises by auto.
The case was initially investigated by the Delhi Police and was later transferred to CBI.
The national agency had apprised the court in April that Najeeb had refused treatment at Safdarjung Hospital after allegedly being assaulted by ABVP-affiliated students.
It also said that the statements of the hospital’s doctor and medical attendant could not be taken due to the absence of documents corroborating Ahmed’s visit.
As per the invstigating officer, when Ahmed visted the hospital, accompanied by his friend Md Quasim, he was advised to get an MLC prepared. However, he went back to the hostel and did not get any MLC prepared.
ACJM Maheshwari had said earlier this month that she would decide on whether or not to accept the police report recommending the closure of a case on the disappearance of Ahmed.
Najeeb’s mother submitted that he had returned to JNU after the holidays on October 13, 2016. On the intervening night of October 15-16, he called his mother to tell her that something wrong had happened to him.
Fatima Nafees further said in her FIR that Ahmed’s roommate, Kasim, told her that there was a fight and he was injured.
The next day, she decided to take a bus from Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr to meet her son. When she reached Delhi, she spoke to Najeeb and asked him to meet at his hostel.
But when she reached his room in the Mahi-Mandvi hostel (Room no 106), there was no trace of Najeeb Ahmed. He has been missing since.
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