New Delhi: The Muslim bangle seller who was assaulted in Indore has been refused bail in a molestation case for which he was charged within 24 hours of the attack on him.LiveLaw has reported that the the bangle seller Tasleem’s bail plea, which posits that the complaint against him was fabricated, was rejected by an Indore court.Earlier in August, The Wire had reported how a video of a brutal attack on Tasleem showed him being beaten up by a group of men in the Banganga area of Indore. The men also used religious slurs at him and accused him of selling bangles in a “Hindu area.” The attack took place in a crowded street but saw no interference from passers by.Tasleem’s police complaint said that the mob vandalised his wares and stole Rs 35,000 from him in the form of valuables and cash. Reports said that police had initially been reticent to file the FIR based on Tasleem’s complaint and it was only filed after a large crowd gathered at the police station demanding that it be registered.Tasleem was booked within a day of the assault on him for allegedly touching a minor inappropriately. He was charged under seven sections of the Indian Penal Code and two sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences or POCSO Act.Madhya Pradesh police and home minister Narottam Mishra have attempted to link the assault on him with the child molestation case.“The controversy started when this man described himself as a Hindu to sell bangles to women during the holy month of saavan, while he actually belongs to another community,” Mishra has said.However, as The Wire has noted previously, the men seen assaulting Tasleem in the video do not appear to refer to his misbehaviour with a minor but to him selling bangles in a “Hindu area.”“Some of the men also seemed bent on assaulting him because of “what happened earlier in Bombay Bazaar”, a reference to an incident from a few days ago in which Muslim men had allegedly molested two Hindu women,” the report notes.Tasleem has pleaded through lawyer Ehtesham Hashmi that the complainant, the minor’s father, was a part of the mob which had attacked him, and that the FIR was an attempt to frame him and suppress the facts of the assault on him.According to the complaint, Tasleem identified himself as Golu and produced an Aadhaar card at a Hindu household where he had gone to sell bangles. The complaint notes a minor girl saying that he grabbed her indecently, and when she screamed, Tasleem ran away, leaving his belongings which contained two Aadhaar cards to his name – one which said he was Asleem, son of Mor Singh, and the other which identified him as Tasleem, son of Mohar Ali.However, in Tasleem’s assault video, he is seen with his belongings, Tasleem’s bail plea argues, noting thus that the FIR against him must have been an afterthought.LiveLaw has quoted from Tasleem’s plea which also asks why, if the assault on him was retribution for a molestation incident, the men were repeatedly heard asking him for his name.Home minister Mishra has meanwhile said that one of the four men held for protesting against Tasleem’s incarceration at a police station was not only linked to “Pakistani elements” but also “chatted with the Taliban on social media”.
