New Delhi: A court here has acquitted five men who were accused of arson, rioting and vandalism in a case linked to the 2020 Delhi riots.
Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh was hearing the case against Abdul Sattar, Muhammad Khalid, Hunain, Tanvir and Arif, who were charged with rioting, unlawful assembly and vandalism in the Chand Bagh area.
In an order dated December 11, the judge said, “I find that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubts and all the accused are entitled to the benefit of the doubt. The accused are accordingly acquitted of all the charges framed against them.”
The court noted that the investigating officer had claimed that the photos of the accused were shown to witness Ramdass Gupta, an employee of a Bhajanpura petrol pump near which the incident of rioting and arson took place, but the origin of the photos was unclear.
“The assertion on behalf of the accused that after their arrest, they had been falsely implicated in this case in order to solve this case cannot be completely brushed aside,” the judge observed.
The court noted that the complainant had claimed that he was attacked at the petrol pump and that he regained consciousness only at a hospital, but contrary to this claim, his father had found him injured at the Bhajanpura chowk.
“According to the injured, after being hit on his head at the petrol pump, he regained consciousness at the St Stephens hospital. Therefore, there is no possibility of this witness moving out of the petrol pump by himself,” the judge pointed out.
“The complainant, in an unconscious condition, was found by his father not at the petrol pump, but at the Bhajanpura chowk and in front of the Bhajanpura police station. This further creates a doubt whether the injury was caused at the Bhajanpura petrol pump or not,” the judge added.
All five accused were arrested after an FIR was lodged over stone pelting and arson in northeast Delhi’s Chand Bagh area in February 2020. The complaint was filed by one Tarun, who had alleged that a mob attacked him and torched his bike near the Bhajanpura petrol pump.
The FIR at the Bhajanpura police station was lodged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including those dealing with rioting, unlawful assembly and arson.
