2020 northeast Delhi riots: Court acquits 11 accused of theft and arson in Gokulpuri area

New Delhi [India], October 5 (ANI): Delhi's Karkardooma Court has acquitted eleven people accused of rioting, unlawful assembly, theft and arson in the Gokulpuri area during the northeast Delhi riots in 2020. The court acquitted all accused persons, giving them the benefit of doubt.

An FIR was registered in Gokulpuri under sections related to rioting and other offences.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Pulastya Pramachala acquitted all eleven accused persons on Friday.

ASJ Pramachala said, "I find that charges levelled against the accused persons in this case are not proved beyond all reasonable doubts and they all are entitled for the benefit of doubt.""Hence, all accused Sumit (alias Badshah), Ankit Chaudhary (alias Fauzi), Ashish Kumar, Saurav Kaushik, Bhupender, Shakti Singh, Pappu, Vijay, Sachin Kumar (alias Rancho), Yogesh, and Rahul, are acquitted of the charges levelled against them," ASJ Pramachala ordered on October 4.

The court held that the possibility of creating evidence against the accused persons cannot be ruled out.

"One cannot lose sight of the fact that the main chargesheet was already filed against the accused persons only on the basis of alleged disclosure statements and without any evidence against them and thus, the possibility to create evidence to support the chargesheet, cannot be ruled-out," ASJ Pramachala said in the judgement.

"Therefore, evidence of prosecution witnesses ASI Mahesh and ASI Giriraj cannot be relied upon to assume the presence of any accused in the mob of rioters," the court held.

As per the chargesheet, the brief facts of the present case are that on March 4, 2020, an FIR was registered at Police Station Gokalpuri on a written complaint of March 1, 2020 from Naushad.

In his complaint, Naushad alleged that on February 25, 2020, at around 10 PM, some unknown persons had trespassed into his house in Gokalpuri. Thereafter, those persons looted and set ablaze his house.

During the investigation, the Investigation Officer (IO) came to know about the arrest of accused Sumit and Ankit Chaudhary in another case on March 5, 2020.

Both these accused had allegedly confessed their involvement in the incident of this case and they also "disclosed" the names of their other associates, who were the members of the unlawful assembly on the date of the incident. Thereafter they were arrested.

During further investigation, IO arrested accused Pappu alias Anda, Vijay, Yogesh, Sachin Kumar alias Rencho, Saurav Kaushik, Shakti Singh, Bhupendra and Ashish Kumar. (ANI)