By Nupur Thapliyal

A Delhi Court has framed charges against 5 men for unlawful assembly, rioting and
murder of one Zakir during the North East Delhi riots. It observed that they developed a
common intention to kill him while riotous clashes happened between Hindu and Muslim
community.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhatt framed charges against all accused persons
under Sections 144 (Joining unlawful assembly armed with deadly weapon), 147
(Rioting), 148 (Rioting, armed with deadly weapon) and 149 (Unlawful Assembly) and
added Section 302 (Murder) r/w 34 against four of them.

“It appears that the accused developed the common intention to kill the accused at
the spur of the moment during the riotous clashes between their community and the person belonging to another community,” the Court said.

The Court however was of the view that the charge of criminal conspiracy was not made
against the accused persons as the material on record did not indicate any prior
agreement between them to kill Zakir, which is the sine qua non for the charge of
conspiracy.

“Thus the material on record prima facie discloses commission of offence of
rioting, murder etc. by the accused. It is evident that if the evidence collected during
the course of investigation and annexed to the chargesheet remains unrebutted the
conviction of the accused is reasonably possible. No case for their discharge has
been made out,” the Judge added.

The prosecution heavily relied on an eye witness namely Shashikant Kashyap, CCTV
footage captured and the CDRs of the mobile phone of the witness as well as the accused which showed their location near the place of incident.

Relying on the statement of witness, the Court was of the view:
“Had he not been present at the spot of incident and had he not witnessed the
incident as stated by him, he would not have made any call at telephone number
100. In view of the same and also considering the manner in which he has narrated
the entire incident in which four members of Muslim community including Zakir
were killed, it is difficult to accept at this stage that he was not present near crime
spot and had not witnessed the killings.”

The Court added that the electronic evidence produced alongwith chargesheet showed
presence of the accused persons at the place of incident and in the the mob.
Accordingly, charges were framed in the matter.

This story first appeared on livelaw.in