A court in Delhi has found three men guilty of setting a mosque ablaze during the Delhi Riots of February 2020.
Additional sessions judge Virender Bhatt found prima facie evidence sufficient to press charges under sections of the Indian Penal Code for rioting (section 147), rioting with a deadly weapon (section 148), theft (section 380), mischief causing damage (section 427), intent to destroy a house by explosives (section 436), every member of unlawful assembly with a common object (section 149).
The accused were arrested and a charge sheet was prepared after the incident on February 24, 2020, for vandalizing, looting, and setting a mosque on fire, reported Bar and Bench.
The defense argued that the accused were being framed and the witnesses were being tutored to testify against them.
Although initially there was no evidence against the accused, a couple of witnesses later testified against them. The court, while framing charges against them, observed that the atmosphere of terror delayed witnesses in coming forward, and hence it could not be held “fatal” to the prosecution’s case.
“It needs to be kept in mind that on account of atmosphere of terror and trauma due to unprecedented riots that had taken in North-East District of Delhi from 24.02.2020 to 27.02.2020, the public had got immensely traumatized to the extent that nobody was willing to come forward and make a statement to the police with regards to the incidents of violence which they had witnessed,” said the court.
Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi in February 2020, after violence between the Citizenship (Amendment) Act supporters and its protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and over 700 injured.
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