2020 Delhi riots: Court acquits 7 of murder, convicts them for disobeying prohibitory order

A Delhi court has acquitted seven men of murder and other serious charges in a 2020 Delhi riots case involving the fatal assault on a man, but convicted them for disobeying a prohibitory order.

The court said it would be unsafe to hold the accused guilty of the fatal assault based on the sole testimony of a police witness which required corroboration.

Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh acquitted the seven men of charges including murder, rioting with deadly weapons and promoting enmity, but held them guilty under IPC Section 188 for disobeying a prohibitory order.

In an order dated October 15, the court said, “There is no evidence through the testimonies of any of the witnesses that any of the accused was armed with any deadly weapon or any weapon whatsoever.”

The case relates to the assault on Babbu, an auto-rickshaw driver, at Khajuri Chowk on February 25, 2020. He died at GTB Hospital two days later.

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The court convicted Kuldeep Singh, Harjeet Singh alias Happy, Rahul alias Ajay, Sachin Rastogi, Bharat Bhushan alias Lucky, Sandeep alias Sanjeev and Dharmender alias Dham under IPC Section 188 for violating the prohibitory order imposed under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The prosecution relied on the testimony of ASI Anil Kumar, who claimed to have witnessed the assault. However, other witnesses cited as eyewitnesses did not support the prosecution’s case.

The court also found that the video footage relied upon by the prosecution was of poor quality and the faces of the people in it could not be identified. It said identifying a person in the footage with the naked eye was “completely impossible”.

“The video was of a very poor quality and from that video, no faces could be made out, and that the identification by the naked eye of any individual in that video was completely impossible,” the judge said.

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The judge observed that the prosecution had failed to establish that the person seen being beaten in the video was Babbu or that the accused were responsible for the fatal assault.

Sachin Gupta alias Mopi, another accused in the case, was acquitted of all charges after being given the benefit of doubt.

The court listed the matter for hearing arguments on sentence against convicts for a later date.