NEW DELHI: A city court has framed charges of murder and rioting against seven people in a case related to the death of a man during the northeast Delhi riots, saying prima facie there was enough material to proceed against them.
Additional sessions judge Vinod Yadav framed charges of murder, rioting, rioting with deadly weapon, unlawful assembly and criminal conspiracy against Aman Kashyap, Arun Kumar, Ashish, Devender Kumar, Pradeep Rai, Krishan Kant Dhiman and Rahul Bhardwaj.
The case pertained to the alleged murder of one Monish, who had died after being allegedly attacked by a riotous mob in Dayalpur area while he was coming back after meeting his father and was carrying sweets.
“I am of the considered opinion that prima facie, there is enough material on record to frame charges against all the accused persons under requisite sections,” the judge said in his order.
The court, however, added that prosecution could not establish the material with regard to offences of disobedience to public servant's order, mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees, mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc of IPC and relevant provisions of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984.
The court said that though the accused persons were not seen/visible in any CCTV footage/video-clip, at this stage, it had the ocular evidence of a prosecution witness (PW).
“I find substance in the submissions of Special PP that PW is not a ‘statue’ who was merely lying stationary at one place and instead his bonafide cannot be doubted at this stage because he had duly made call to the PCR, which is contemporaneous to the time of commission of incident in the matter,” it said.
All the accused had claimed they were falsely implicated in the matter.
With respect to the contention of the accused’s counsel that they were not seen/visible in any CCTV footage, the court said it found substance in the submissions of public prosecutor that rioters had broken down virtually every CCTV in the vicinity and had damaged the DVRs thereof as such, it was quite possible that on this account no CCTV footage was available in the matter.
