[Delhi Riots] "Their Object was to cause maximum damage to Hindus' properties": Court convicts nine accused

Delhi’s Karkardooma Court on Monday convicted nine people in a 2020 Delhi riots case. The convicts are Mohd Shahnawaz, Mohd Shoaib, Shahrukh, Rashid alias Raza, Azad, Ashraf Ali, Parvez, Md Faisal and Rashid.

All persons have been convicted for the offences of rioting, unlawful assembly, theft, mischief causing damage, and mischief with fire and/or explosives.

Additional Sessions Judge Pulatsaya Parmachala ordered, “On the basis of the evidence in this case and further reasoning…I find it well established that all the named accused persons, in this case, did become part of an unruly mob, which was guided by communal feelings and had the objective of causing maximum damage to the properties of persons belonging to the Hindu community.”

The FIRs were registered based on the accusations leveled by three private individuals who claimed that on February 24 and 25, 2020, members of a mob, of which the accused were alleged to be a part, vandalised their shops and homes.

In two of the FIRs that resulted in acquittal, Head Constable Hari Babu had failed to identify the defendants before the court, citing memory loss with the passage of time. The court had then acquitted all of them, noting that the constable's testimony alone was insufficient to presume their participation in the mob.

Now, Delhi’s Karkardooma Court has convicted the accused persons in another case after the cop provided a comprehensive description of them as mob participants.

The court stated that while it was true that Head Constable Babu suffered from ear-related issues, including vertigo, as evidenced by his medical records, it was not necessarily the case that he was suffering from a mental disorder just because he was unable to correctly recall facts or faces.

“As per common knowledge of medical science, the problem of vertigo does make a person unstable and very uncomfortable because of severe giddiness etc. In that state of mind, it can be possible with anyone that he does not recollect all the things very correctly and accurately,” it said.

The accused have been convicted for offences punishable under sections 147, 148, 380, 427, 436, 149 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. While three of them were in jail, six others were out on bail. The court has directed all of them to be taken into judicial custody and the matter has now been fixed for arguments on sentence on March 29.

“The person who remained a member of this mob, remained voluntarily part of it, despite seeing the actions of this mob, which included mindless firing, pelting of stones, throwing petrol bombs at the group of Hindus and therefore, it cannot be assumed that firing at Rahul Solanki was solitary action of one individual, which had no connection with the common object of the aforesaid mob,” the judge said.