Three discharged in 2020 riots case; erroneous chargesheet: court

The matter pertains to some vehicles parked in a school being allegedly set on fire by a mob

The investigating officer had clubbed several complaints by some victims, observed the judge. | Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO

Discharging three men accused of rioting and vandalism in a case pertaining to the 2020 north-east Delhi violence, a court here has pulled up Delhi Police for filing a chargesheet without proper investigation.

Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala of Karkardooma Court, on August 16, said the order of discharge for Akil Ahmed, Raheesh Khan, and Irshad was being passed after realising that the chargesheet was “predetermined”, “mechanical”, and filed in an “erroneous” manner with subsequent actions to only cover up the initial wrong actions.

The matter pertains to an FIR lodged at the Dayalpur police station on February 28, 2020. The judge found that the investigating officer (IO) clubbed several complaints by some victims whose vehicles, parked at Victoria School in Brijpuri on Wazirabad Road, were allegedly set on fire by a rioting mob. In three years, the police had submitted one main and two supplementary chargesheets in the case.

‘Rare coincidence’

The court observed that it was a “rare kind of coincidence” that in all the complaints, the victims reported the wrong date and time after suffering from the same kind of problem, i.e. shock/trauma, and realised this trauma after around three years after filing their respective complaints.

It also questioned the timeline of the incidents quoted in the chargesheets and found the continuity of events discrepant.

The court also noted that at the time of preparing the chargesheet, the names of the accused were nowhere mentioned in any evidence related to identification of the culprits. “Their names were only mentioned by the police witnesses...,” it added.

Suspicion over IO

The judge added that instead of having a grave suspicion against the accused for their involvement in the alleged incidents as mentioned by the police, it had suspicion over the IO having manipulated the evidence in the case without actually investigating the incidents properly.

He referred the case back to the police to make assessment of the investigation and take further action in conformity with law, to take the above mentioned complaints to a legal and logical end.