A Delhi court has framed charges against five persons accused of unlawful assembly, rioting and murder during the north-east Delhi riots, saying that they “developed a common intention” to kill him when communal clashes erupted in the city.
On October 30, additional sessions judge Virender Bhatt framed charges against all the accused persons for rioting, murder and unlawful assembly, among other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“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.
“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 charge sheet remains unrebutted, the conviction of the accused is reasonably possible. No case for their discharge has been made out,” said the judge.
The court, however, said 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 the victim, identified as Zakir.
The prosecution had relied on the statement of an eyewitness, CCTV footage and the call detail records of the mobile phone of the witness as well as the accused which showed their location near the place of incident.
Taking note of the witness’ statement, the court said, “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 to 100 (emergency police helpline).”
“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 the crime spot and had not witnessed the killings,” it said.
Separate FIRs have been registered in the three other deaths.
The judge added that the electronic evidence produced along with the charge sheet showed presence of the accused at the scene of the crime.
At least 53 people lost their lives and over 400 people were injured in the communal riots in north-east Delhi in February last year.
This story first appeared on hindustantimes.com