It details the statement of Kazeem Ahmad Sherwani, who testified during investigation that he was offered a shared car ride to Aligarh from Noida on July 4, 2021. Once inside the car, the accused allegedly locked the doors and beat him.

According to Sherwani, the attackers called him a “mulla”, repeatedly pulled his beard, removed his skull cap and stripped him naked. The driver allegedly told an accomplice to “gouge out this Mulla’s eyes” with a screwdriver, which struck Sherwani’s nose, before they robbed him of Rs 1,200.

The inclusion of these charges marks a reversal for the police. Although the alleged attack took place in July 2021, the police initially did not register a first information report (FIR). This prompted Sherwani to approach the Supreme Court.

Following the apex court’s intervention, the police filed an FIR only in January 2023. Noida Police conducted an inquiry into this delay and five police personnel were suspended and are facing departmental proceedings for not registering the case on time.

Initially, the police had denied any communal angle in the incident.

In its reply filed in the SC in response to Sherwani’s petition in 2022, the police said that it had concluded that no cognisable offence – a crime for which police can arrest without a warrant – had taken place. The police told the court that the “alleged incident was sensationalised on social media with a communal angle being brought in”, and that Sherwani changed his statements given to the police.

Eventually, the FIR was registered after the SC summoned the case diary in January 2023. The police’s initial chargesheet, filed in March 2023, framed the incident as a routine robbery by a gang targeting lone commuters, ruling out any communal hate crime angle.

However, the SC, in an order on February 16, 2026, said that the IO had “committed grave error” by dropping the hate crime charges. Noting that a “bare perusal” of the FIR clearly made out offences under Sections 153B and 295A, the court had directed the police to conduct further investigation and seek government sanction to prosecute the accused for these offences.