Delhi riots: Court directs police to probe if attempt made to shield five offenders for lack of evidence
The judge said that the perusal of the chargesheet does not indicate whether or not there were any efforts made by the IO to trace any other witness to the incident in question.
FollowA Delhi court has directed the police to investigate whether a deliberate attempt was made to shield five men who were discharged in a February 2020 riots case due to the lack of sufficient evidence. Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat discharged five men accused of allegedly being part of a riotous mob, looting a medical shop and house of the complainant Firoz Khan, and taking away medicines and cosmetics worth about Rs 22-23 lakh on February 25, 2020.
The judge said that the perusal of the chargesheet does not indicate whether or not there were any efforts made by the IO to trace any other witness to the incident in question. It is not clear as to whether the IO chose not to find out any other witness or whether no other person came forward who had seen the incident in question.
“This Court is not insensitive towards the mental agony and the financial loss suffered by the complainant due to this incident. The sensitivity or the emotions alone are not the factors to be taken into consideration by the court while deciding the fate of any accused. These cannot take place of evidence,” the Court said while discharging the accused as reported by Bar and Bench.
The judge further said the accused were not let off because the incident in question did not happen or that they were falsely implicated but merely for the reason that there was no sufficient evidence produced against them.
“Let the DCP North-East District conduct an inquiry into the manner in which the investigation was conducted by the IO, in this case, to find out whether or not there had been any deliberate attempt to shield the offenders and submit a report to this Court on the next date of hearing,” he ordered.
The court observed that in this case, it was just the complainant who was a prosecution witness and that he did not identify any members of the mob at the time of the incident but did so when he was shown their photographs by the police.
