10 acquitted in Delhi riots case, court cites ‘artificiality’ in police claims
The matter pertained to an alleged instance of vandalism and looting by a mob during the communal violence that broke out in the capital in 2020.
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A Delhi court on Wednesday acquitted 10 men in a case pertaining to the 2020 North East Delhi riots, citing gaps in the police’s investigation, reported The Indian Express.
They are Mohammad Shahanwaz, Mohammad Shoaib, Shahrukh, Rashid, Azad, Ashraf Ali, Parvaiz, Mohammad Faisal, Rashid and Mohammad Tahir, according to a press release by Islamic organisation Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, which claims to have provided them with legal assistance.
Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala of the Karkardooma Courts observed an “artificiality” in the claims of an investigating officer and contradictions in witnesses’ statements against the men.
Fifty-three persons were killed and hundreds more injured in the rioting that broke out in North East Delhi between February 23 and February 26, 2020, after protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act triggered a violent backlash against Muslim demonstrators. At least 38 of those killed were Muslim.
The men acquitted this week had been charged with arson and rioting with a deadly weapon. The case concerned allegations of vandalism and looting by a mob in Delhi’s Shiv Vihar area during the riots.
A complaint from a man named Narender Kumar on March 1, 2020, claimed that a mob of 50 to 60 people vandalised his shop, barged into his home and looted 15 tolas – 150 grams – of gold, half a kilogram of...
