CBI drops murder charge in Nido Tania case - Times of India

NEW DELHI: Seven people chargesheeted in the Nido Tania racial killing case on Friday will face charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, illegal confinement, and offences under the SC/ST Atrocities Act, but not murder. CBI, which took over the investigation two months ago, dropped the murder charge pressed by Delhi Police on the ground that the fatal assault on Tania was not premeditated but resulted from an altercation over the breaking of a glass counter.

The chargesheet filed in the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate mentions three juveniles (whose names cannot be published) and four adults, namely, Farman, Pawan, Sunder and Sunny Uppal. Proceedings against the juveniles will be conducted by the Juvenile Justice Board.

Nido Tania, 19, son of a Congress MLA from Arunachal Pradesh, Nido Pavitra, was a BA first-year student at a private university. He was beaten up in an altercation with some shopkeepers in Lajpat Nagar on January 29 this year, and was found dead at his residence the next day.

Delhi Police had slapped murder charges on the four adults accused in the case after Tania's postmortem revealed he died of head and facial injuries caused by a blunt object. The case was transferred to CBI after Tania's parents met Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to demand speedy justice.

"The investigations revealed that Tania visited Lajpat Nagar along with three friends and asked a few persons at a dairy (Rajasthan Paneer Bhandar) for directions to the house of a common friend. The accused humiliated and laughed at him," said CBI spokesperson Kanchan Prasad. "It was further alleged that Nido Tania, who was also physically assaulted ultimately succumbed to his injuries on January 30. His postmortem was conducted by a panel of doctors at AIIMS which concluded that cerebro pulmonary edema caused by a blunt weapon led to his death."

CBI's Special Crime Unit, which was conducting investigations, had carried out all the scientific tests on the accused persons and carried out forensic examination of the collected evidence.