A court here has acquitted 11 people accused of rioting, theft and arson in a case related to the 2020 north-east Delhi riots as the charges levelled against them couldn’t be proved “beyond reasonable doubt”.
The riots had broken out following protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, leading to the death of at least 53 people. Around 200 people were injured.
Those acquitted are Sumit, alias Badshah, Ankit Chaudhary, alias Fauzi, Ashish Kumar, Saurav Kaushik, Bhupender, Shakti Singh, Pappu, Vijay, Sachin Kumar, alias Rancho, Yogesh and Rahul.
The FIR in the case was lodged at the Gokalpuri police station on March 3, 2020, in which the complainant Naushad had alleged that an unruly mob had trespassed into his house around 10 p.m. on February 25, 2020 and looted valuables.
The complainant had alleged that the accused later set the property ablaze.
Passing the judgment on Friday, Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala of the Karkardooma court noted that the core issue was whether accused persons were part of the mob as the accused’s counsel challenged the testimonies of two policemen on the ground that its took more than 10 months for them to identify the accused.
The court noted that during the course of arguments, the evidence produced by the police gave the impression that the policemen were “artificially made eyewitnesses” to identify the accused persons. “One cannot lose sight of the fact that the main chargesheet was already filed against the accused persons only on the basis of alleged disclosure statements and without any evidence against them, thus, the possibility to create evidence to support the chargesheet cannot be ruled out,” the court said.
Published – October 06, 2024 01:05 am IST