FIR filed 3 years after man blinded in northeast Delhi riots

The FIR was filed on Sunday under sections pertaining to rioting, causing grievous hurt by acid, and causing mischief by fire, among others.

Fifty two-year-old Mohammad Vakeel was at his general store in north-east Delhi’s Shiv Vihar when a mob allegedly hurled acid at him during the February 2020 riots, leaving him blind and with a damaged face within seconds. More than a 1,000 days later, the police last week registered a first information report (FIR) in the alleged attack following a court order.

Mohammad Vakeel lost his eyesight during the February 2020 riots in northeast Delhi . (Vipin Kumar /HT PHOTO)

The FIR was filed on Sunday under sections pertaining to rioting, causing grievous hurt by acid, and causing mischief by fire, among others, of the Indian Penal Code at Karawal Nagar police station.

Prior to this, the police had clubbed a complaint into the matter, filed by Vakeel’s wife Mumtaz Begum, with another FIR related to burning of a car in the same neighbourhood during the riots.

However, the Karkardooma court noted on March 21 this year that both were different crimes which occurred at separate locations, and possibly separate timings.

“Despite all efforts, the police did not record my statement or the statements of my wife and daughter till today,” Vakeel has said in the FIR.

Because the police clubbed two very different cases, his lawyer Saleem Malik said that “there was just no investigation” into the alleged attack.

Joy Tirkey, deputy commissioner of police (north-east), said, “We have registered the FIR on the court’s directions. It will be investigated on its merit and without bias”.

Besides running to courts, Vakeel’s last three years were spent in making multiple visits to an eye hospital in Chennai where, after nearly two years of complete blindness, he got a lens which gives him hazy vision in his right eye.

Vakeel lived with his wife and five children in a two-storey house constructed over a 25 square yard plot in Shiv Vihar — one of the worst-hit neighbourhoods in the riots which broke out after a clash between groups supporting and opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act in Jafrabad. The violence spread to several localities in the district, in which at least 53 people were killed and 400 injured.

Among the injured was also Vakeel’s 19-year-old daughter, Anaam — also a victim of the alleged acid attack.

According to Vakeel, he was at his store downstairs on February 25, when at around 9pm, a huge mob landed outside his home. “Someone from the mob hurled a bottle at me that hit me in the face. Initially I thought it was a stone, but when the bottle crashed into my face, the acid spread all over,” he said. The acid also hit Anaam on her face and chest, said her 16-year-old brother, Mohammad Naseem, who witnessed the attack.

While the family managed to escape, their house was looted and subsequently burnt to the ground, said Vakeel.

Around 3am on February 26, Vakeel was taken to a hospital. While he recuperated at the Lady Hardinge Hospital for a month, his wife filed a complaint with the police on March 9 that year.

In the court, the Delhi Police has justified clubbing the complaint with another FIR, and said it was done as per law. They told the court that as many as 4,000 PCR calls were received at the Karawal Nagar police station during the riots, and they translated to 91 FIRs. “…registration of a separate FIR will open pandora box for the others,” the police told the court.

Insisting that a “much effective investigation” was going on in Vakeel’s complaint, the police has claimed that he did not himself seek a separate FIR in his case. Vakeel, however, alleges that it was his “ignorance” of the legal system that was taken advantage of.

The court, however, in its March 21 order, observed that “just because there was flood of complaints, investigating agency could not make an exception to the mandate of law.”

A senior police officer said that there was “no bias against Vakeel” as police filed 759 FIRs in the Delhi riots.

Vakeel now awaits the arrest of the alleged attackers, who also snatched his source of livelihood. “I was blinded in my own home, by people who landed on my doorstep, for no fault of mine. They need to be punished,” said Vakeel. “An FIR took three years. Let’s see how long it takes for the police to arrest the attackers.”