11 arrested for arson, vandalism during 2020 Delhi riots acquitted

The Karkardooma Court in the national capital recently acquitted 11 people in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots case news agency ANI reportedThe acquittal comes after the court established that no credible evidence has been found against the accused It also discarded the testimony of two police officers who identified the accused in a video and noted that the 11 people were identified at a belated stage after their arrest and the filing of a charge sheetA first information report FIR in the case was filed at the Gokal Puri Police StationAdditional Sessions Judge ASJ Pulastya Pramachala acquitted all the accused after considering the evidence and testimonies of the witnesses presented by the prosecutionIn view of my foregoing discussions observations and findings I find that charges levelled against the accused persons in this case are not proved beyond all reasonable doubts and accused are entitled for benefit of doubt Hence all accused Ankit Chaudhary alias Fauzi Sumit alias Badshah Pappu Vijay Ashish Kumar Sourabh Kaushik Bhupender Shakti Singh Sachin Kumar alias Rancho Rahul and Yogesh are acquitted of the charges levelled against them the ASJ held on May 14The court further noted that the two officers who identified the accused claimed to know them prior to the 2020 Delhi riotsHowever both these officials were posted in the same police station despite that their statement regarding identifying the accused persons was recorded at much belated time the court stated adding Moreover if these accused persons were already known to these two police officials then there could not have been any need to identify them in any video or photographsrdquoIn its judgment the court also observed ldquoIt is worth to note here that by the time Investigation Officer IO recorded statement of these two police officials all accused were already arrested and chargesheeted in this case Therefore their identification of accused persons at such belated time is not beyond controversy and doubtOn March 3 2020 an FIR was registered at PS Gokalpuri pursuant to the receipt of a written complaint filed by a person named Mohammad Imran Sheikh The complainant alleged that medicines were stocked in the first and second floors of his shop Around 130 am an employee of a salon situated opposite to his medical shop had called him to inform that some persons had looted his shop and were setting it ablaze Immediately thereafter Sheikh alerted the police about itAnother complaint was filed by Akram Ali who was running a barber shop in the same area along with his brother AslamHe alleged that on February 2 2020 around 6 pm several people gathered and vandalised his shop Thereafter the two brothers left Delhi and went to their hometown to save their lives Aslam returned on February 28 and informed his brother that the shop had been vandalisedWith ANI inputsatOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params