Delhi court acquits 7 men in 2020 riots case:Convicts them of violating prohibitory order, citing insufficient evidence in murder case

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 of disobeying a prohibitory order, news agency PTI reported. The court said it would be unsafe to hold the accused guilty of the fatal assault based solely on the 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. However, he convicted them under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for disobeying a prohibitory order. In an order dated 15 October, 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.” Case relates to fatal assault on auto-rickshaw driver The case relates to the assault on Babbu, an auto-rickshaw driver, at Khajuri Chowk on 25 February 2020. He died at GTB Hospital two days later. 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 Section 188 of the IPC for violating the prohibitory order imposed under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Court says police witness’s testimony needed corroboration The prosecution relied on the testimony of Assistant Sub-Inspector Anil Kumar, who claimed to have witnessed the assault. However, other witnesses cited as eyewitnesses did not support the prosecution’s case. The court said it would be unsafe to convict the accused of the fatal assault based solely on the police officer’s testimony without corroborating evidence. Poor-quality video footage failed to establish identities The court also found that the video footage relied upon by the prosecution was of poor quality and that the faces of the people shown in it could not be identified. “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. 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. Another accused acquitted of all charges Sachin Gupta alias Mopi, another accused in the case, was acquitted of all charges after being given the benefit of the doubt. The court listed the matter for a later date to hear arguments on the sentence to be imposed on the seven men convicted under Section 188 of the IPC.