Delhi Riots- Court Frames Charges Against Three Men For Rioting, Vandalism & Setting Mosque On Fire

A Delhi Court has framed charges against three men for rioting, vandalising and setting a mosque on fire during the North East Delhi riots of 2020.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat framed charges against Deepak, Prince and Shiv under sec. 147, 148, 380, 427, 436 read with sec. 149 of the Indian Penal Code.

"It needs to be kept in mind that on account of atmosphere of terror and trauma due to unprecedented riots that had taken in North East District of Delhi from 24.02.2020 to 27.02.2020, the public had got immensely traumatized to the extent that nobody was willing to come forward and make statement to the police with regards to the incidents of violence which they had witnessed. It is for this reason that the delay in recording the statements of above two witnesses in this case can not be held fatal to the prosecution case at this stage when charges are to be decided against the accused," the Court said.

The Judge was of the view that it would be highly unjustified to disbelieve the witnesses' statements at the threshold without testing their version on the touchstone of the cross examination during the course of trial. Thus, the Court found prima facie suffient material to frame charges against the accused persons.

FIR 50/2020 was registered at Gokalpuri police station after an information was received that some people were demolishing a mosque Gokalpuri Main Road, Sabhapur and about 15­20 persons were trapped inside the mosque.

The Fire Brigade vehicle had also reached the spot which was extinguishing the fire in the mosque. According to the prosecution, about 400­ to 500 people had gathered at the spot who were having wooden and iron rods in their hands and were resorting to vandalization as well as arson in the area. However, nobody was found trapped in the mosque.

After registration of the FIR, the investigating officer had also prepared a rough site plan of the spot. No CCTV footage was found installed nearby the spot of incident and hence the the same could not be collected.

Further investigation revealed that a secret informer had handed over a video footage to a head constable which was regarding the incident of arson in Janati Masjid. After watching the said video, the head constable had identified the assailants who were the three accused persons alongwith two juveniles.

The three accused were stated to have made separate disclosure statements admitting their involvement in the vandalization and setting ablaze the Janati Mosque, Gokalpuri. Three more complaints were received in the police station regarding the said incident which were clubbed with the FIR.

It was thus argued on behalf of the prosecution that all the three accused were identified as rioters, who had allegedly vandalized and set on fire the Janati Mosque by the two public witnesses Shareem and Sajid.

It was also submitted that the accused persons were also clearly seen in the video footage which was annexed with the chargesheet in the shape of a CD and therefore charges for all the offences were made out against all the accused.

"In the FSL result regarding the said CD, it has been stated that no indication of any alteration in the said video shoot has been observed on the basis of frame by frame examination. It has been clearly stated that no indication of any form of alteration in the audio as well as video file was observed. Therefore, prima facie there does not appear any tampering the said video footage and the same can not be disregarded at this stage," the Court noted.

Accordingly, charges were framed by the Court against the three accused.

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