NE Delhi Riots 2020: Court Frames Murder, Rioting Charges Against 7

The group of men had allegedly beaten a Muslim man with sticks and stones before he was killed.

Riots had erupted in northeast Delhi in February 2021.

(Photo: PTI)

A Delhi court, on Monday, 2 August, framed charges against seven men accused in the murder of a Muslim man in the Northeast Delhi riots that had shaken the city in February last year.

The accused – Aman Kashyap, Devender Kumar, Rahul Bhardwaj, Pradeep Rai, Arun Kumar, Ashish, and Krishan Kant Dhiman – had allegedly murdered Monish, who was returning to his house after meeting his father, carrying sweets, as per a The Indian Express report.

The mob had allegedly beaten him with sticks and stones before he was killed.

Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav framed charges against the 7 accused under the following sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC): 302 (murder), section 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon) of the Indian Penal Code, read with sections 149 (offence committed by any member of unlawful assembly in prosecution of common object) and 120B (criminal conspiracy), The Indian Express reported.

The court observed that while the accused men were not visible in any CCTV footage or video clip, the eye witness account of the prosecution witness (PW) had presented ample evidence.

The legal counsel of the accused had argued in the court that the men had been falsely implicated.

However, the court, in its order, stated, “I find substance in the submissions of Special PP that PW is not a “statue” who was merely lying stationary at one place and instead his bonafide cannot be doubted at this stage because he had duly made call to the PCR which is contemporaneous to the time of commission of incident in the matter (sic),” The Indian Express reported.

Communal clashes broke out in northeast Delhi in February last year. As many as 53 people had been reported dead while hundreds were injured. Property worth crores was destroyed in the violence.

In 1st Delhi Riots Verdict, Man Accused of Looting, Rioting Acquitted

A Delhi court on 20 July had acquitted a man who had been accused of participating in unlawful assembly, rioting, and dacoity in the northeast Delhi riots.

That was the first case among the many filed in connection to Delhi riots wherein a verdict had been pronounced, more than a year after the violence.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, who had presided over the case, had observed that the testimonies of the witnesses in the case were contradictory and that there was no definite identification of the accused, Suresh.

"It is a clear-cut case of acquittal," he had said, news agency PTI reported.

(With inputs from The Indian Express and PTI)