New Delhi: “None of the witnesses… have supported the case of the prosecution” or stated that they had witnessed the murder of a 32-year-old scrap dealer by a “riotous mob”, a court said while acquitting 13 accused in a 2020 northeast Delhi riots case.Judge Parveen Kumar Singh held that the prosecution failed to prove charges of murder, dacoity, rioting, arson and destruction of evidence, noting that its alleged eyewitnesses had turned hostile and other testimonies were “completely vague and generalised”.The court found that a mob of around 250 people, of which the accused were members, constituted an “unlawful assembly”. However, the evidence did not establish that the accused or the assembly had committed rioting. It also held that no liability for being armed with a “deadly weapon” could be fastened on a person merely through membership of an unlawful assembly, as there was no evidence attributing any weapon to any accused.As per the prosecution, the 32-year-old scrap dealer was killed during the riots, with the accused forming part of a riotous mob involved in the murder, dacoity and arson. The prosecution had cited Divesh Rajpoot as an eyewitness to the killing, but he turned hostile during his testimony. Other witnesses identified some accused as members of mobs but did not claim to have witnessed the murder or any acts of dacoity.On allegations of hate speech, the court observed that the only evidence concerning the assembly was that the crowd raised slogans of “Jai Siya Ram” and “Har Har Mahadev”. However, “merely raising these slogans is not an offence” unless accompanied by acts falling foul of the law. The court also held that an accused could not be convicted again for WhatsApp chats for which he had already been convicted, in view of Article 20 of the Constitution.The court further found no evidence of destruction of evidence, arson or other related offences and held that there was “no evidence of any dacoity as such”. It also noted that the prosecution had failed to establish how, where, when or by whom the scrap dealer was killed.However, the court drew an “adverse presumption” against Himanshu Thakur, one of the accused, after he failed to explain his possession of the deceased’s mobile phone. It held that he knew or had reason to believe the phone was stolen and convicted him under Section 411 IPC for dishonestly receiving or retaining stolen property.Accordingly, all 13 accused were given the benefit of doubt and acquitted of the charges, while Thakur was convicted of possessing the stolen mobile phone.
