Court acquits 5 over 2020 Northeast Delhi riots

The court also noted that the case against the accused was falsely built, based on fake witness identifications

New Delhi A Delhi court has acquitted five people of charges of arson and rioting during the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, after holding that the Delhi Police probed in a mechanical manner and falsely implicated the accused to show that it had solved the case.

In the FIR, the five men were accused of setting ablaze a petrol pump and several vehicles in Northeast Delhi’s Bhajanpura on February 24, during the peak of the communal violence. (HT Archive)

Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh of Karkardooma Courts, through an order passed on December 11, observed, “I find that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubts and all the accused entitled to a benefit of doubt. The accused are accordingly acquitted for all the charges framed against them.”

Questioning the police investigation conducted after taking the five men into custody, the court observed, “…the sole testimony of PW4 (public witness) in light of the fact, that the other two witnesses have not been found to be reliable and there being a probability of investigation being done in a mechanical manner to solve the case, will not be sufficient to convict the accused for these offences”.

In the FIR, the five men were accused of setting ablaze a petrol pump and several vehicles in Northeast Delhi’s Bhajanpura on February 24, during the peak of the communal violence. In that incident, a man identified as Tarun (single name), who had come to the spot to refuel his bike, sustained head injuries after being attacked by an unidentified mob, police clubbed his complaint into the same FIR.

The accused, Abdul Sattar, Arif, Mohd. Khalid, Hunain and Tanvir Ali alias Gully, were arrested almost a year later in January and February 2021 after being identified by a few witnesses in the FIR registered under penal sections pertaining to arson, vandalism, attempt to commit culpable homicide and later wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot.

Regarding the prosecution’s version of what led to Tarun’s injury, which took place at around 1.45pm, the court noted that one of the witnesses, who was the petrol pump’s employee, stated that the premises was cordoned off by 12.30pm by the staff after violence broke out.

Further punching holes in the police’s theory, the court noted that according to the statement of Tarun’s father, he found Tarun at the Bhajanpura chowk instead of at the petrol pump, and even his motorbike, purportedly set ablaze by the same set of accused, was not recovered. The court said that no efforts were made by the investigating officer (IO) to identify Tarun’s motorcycle through its chassis number.

After examination of the case diary, the court pointed out that it appeared that till June 16, 2021, despite the five men being identified in the case, no effective investigation was done which actually linked them to the incident.

The court also noted that the case against the accused was falsely built based on fake witness identifications without any evidence as the IO simply wanted to show that he had cracked the case.