North East Delhi riots case: Court acquits 9 accused of rioting, giving them benefit of doubts

NEW DELHI: The Karkardooma court has recently acquitted nine peole, including Shah Alam, brother of Tahir Hussain accsued of rioting, causing injuries and other offences. The court acquitted all the accsued persons, giving them the benefit of doubts.

ThE case pertains to an FIR lodged in the Police Station Dayal Pur in 2020. Several complaints were the subject matter of the FIR. Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Parveen Singh acquitted Shah Alam, Rashid Saifi, Mohd. Shadab, Habib, Irfan, Suhail, Salim alias Ashu, Irshad and Azhar alias Sonu of all charges.

“I find that it will be unsafe to rely upon the testimonies of these witnesses to convict the accused. I accordingly find that the accused are entitled to the benefit of doubt. All the accused are accordingly acquitted of the charges framed against them,” ASJ Singh ordered on March 30. This case involved alleged vandalism of a car, causing injuries to passengers, burning of a bike, vandalism of a cart and other offences.

While acquitting the accused persons, the judge pointed out a discrepancy in the date of the incidents and statment of witnesses. The court noted that the entire case of the prosecution against the accused rests on three witnesses, as is also visible from the written submissions filed by the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP). These witnesses are Naresh, Constable Gyan and Head Constable Sunil.

” Their testimonies are general in nature, lack specificity and especially in view of the fact that these witnesses have deposed falsely with regard to the place of the incident of the Innova Crysta car as well as the date of the incident of Royal Motors and having seen this incident,” the judge said.

The FIR of this case was registered on the complaint of one Vivek Pathak, who alleged that during the riots of 24.02.2020, he was travelling in the vehicle Innova Crysta from Ghaziabad to Faridabad. When he reached Chand Bagh, hundreds of people surrounded them, vandalised their vehicle and in this incident, he, Pawan Tiwari and other persons received injuries.

During the investigation of this case, two more complaints, one of SI Mumtaz Ali and the second one of Salim Ahmed, were also clubbed with this FIR.

As per the complaint of SI Mumtaz Ali, on 24.02.2020, he had parked his motorcycle near the protest site at Chand Bagh, and this motorcycle was burnt in the riot. As per the complaint of Salim Ahmed, he had a shop by the name of Royal Motors in Chand Bagh and on 24.02.2020 at around 3.00 p.m, his entire shop alongwith articles therein had been burnt down by the rioters.

Further, during the investigation, three more complaints of Radha Rani, Rajjo (complaint of Rajjo has not been proved on record) and Mohd. Ishraq were also clubbed with this FIR. (ANI)