The engineering student who allegedly ran over an elderly businessman in Jammu’s Gandhi Nagar last month was denied bail this week, with a court saying that the suspect had shown “deliberate intent to kill”.
Dismissing 19-year-old Manan Anand’s bail application Friday, the Chief Judicial Magistrate observed that the case went beyond a simple accident. Manan was arrested after a viral video showed his rashly driven Thar Mahindra SUV first knocking over 68-year-old Kamal Dutt and eventually backing on to him, leading to serious injuries.
“The act of reversing the vehicle over a helpless senior citizen shows prima facie deliberate intent to kill,” she observed, adding that such road rage incidents posed a grave threat to public peace and security.
Dutt is currently at the Fortis Hospital, Chandigarh, where he remains in a critical condition.
Representing the suspect, Advocate Ranbir Singh argued that Anand had no criminal priors and had surrendered to the police voluntarily. Public pressure and media coverage of the incident had victimised him, the advocate said, arguing that Supreme Court rulings had repeatedly emphasised that bail was a rule and not an exception.
On their part, Public Prosecutor Vikram Parihar and Advocate Sachin Gupta, who appeared for the victim, argued, that the offence was heinous, non-bailable, and amounted to an “attempted murder in broad daylight”. They also added that the suspect could tamper with evidence and intimidate witnesses.
“Running over the victim a second time reflects deliberate intent. Such incidents are a grave threat to public peace and must be dealt with firmly,” the court observed, adding that given the crime, granting bail at this stage would “send wrong signals to society” and embolden others.
