A Delhi court today, Monday, June 30, permitted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to close the missing person case of former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Najeeb Ahmed, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances on October 15, 2016.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Jyoti Maheshwari accepted the closure report filed by the central agency. However, the court granted liberty to reopen the case if any fresh evidence surfaces in the future, said a report by Hindustan Times.
In 2018, the federal investigating agency closed its investigation into the case, as its efforts to trace Ahmed had turned futile. Subsequently, the CBI filed its closure report before the court after securing permission from the Delhi High Court.
Najeeb Ahmed's mother, Fatima Nafees, had challenged the CBI's closure report in court, arguing that it was a “political case”, and further alleging that the CBI had “succumbed to the pressure of its masters”.
Najeeb Ahmed, a student of MSc Biotechnology at JNU, went missing from the university’s Mahi-Mandvi hostel on October 15, 2016, following a tussle with a few students allegedly linked to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) the previous night.
While the incident raised serious concerns, the hostel warden later stated that he had seen Najeeb leaving the campus in an auto-rickshaw. The investigation, initially handled by the Delhi Police, was subsequently handed over to the CBI.
In its submission to the court earlier this April, the CBI stated that Najeeb Ahmed had refused medical treatment at Safdarjung Hospital after he was allegedly assaulted by students affiliated with the ABVP. The agency added that the statements of the hospital’s doctor and medical attendant could not be recorded, as there were no documents confirming Ahmed’s visit.
According to the investigating officer, Ahmed was advised to get a Medico-Legal Case (MLC) report prepared during his hospital visit. However, he and his friend, Md Quasim, returned to the hostel without proceeding with the MLC.
Earlier this month, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Jyoti Maheshwari had reserved her decision on whether to accept the police’s closure report in the disappearance case.
What happened in 2016?
Najeeb Ahmed had returned to the JNU campus on October 13, 2016, after a break. In the early hours of October 16, he reportedly called his mother to say that something had gone wrong.
According to the FIR (First Information Report) filed by his mother, Fatima Nafees, Ahmed’s roommate, Kasim, informed her that Najeeb had been involved in a scuffle and was injured.
Worried, Fatima travelled from Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, to Delhi to meet her son. She called him en route and asked to meet him at his hostel. But when she arrived at Room 106 in the Mahi-Mandvi hostel, Najeeb was nowhere to be found. He has remained missing since then.
