2020 Delhi riots: Court acquits 12, says mere mob membership cannot prove guilt

The Delhi court has acquitted 12 persons accused of murder, rioting, and dacoity in a 2020 northeast Delhi riots case, saying that criminal liability cannot be fastened on a person merely because he was a member of an unlawful assembly without proof of his individual acts.

Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh was hearing the case against Lokesh Solanki, Pankaj Sharma, Ankit Chaudhary, Prince, Jatin Sharma, Himanshu Thakur, Vivek Panchal, Rishabh Chaudhary, Sumit Chaudhary, Tinku Arora, Sandeep and Sahil.

In an order dated August 25, the court said, "It's an individual's own act, while being in an unlawful assembly, of being armed with a deadly weapon which constitutes an offence under Section 144 IPC. No such liability can be fastened upon a person… by his mere membership of an unlawful assembly."

The court said the prosecution was required to prove against each accused the specific acts constituting the alleged offences and could not rely merely on their alleged membership of a mob.

All 12 were accused in the case concerning the killing of Mursaleen, whose body was found in a drain near Johripur Tiraha on February 28, 2020.

The court noted that the prosecution's principal witness, Divesh Rajpoot, who was projected as an eyewitness to Mursaleen's murder and had allegedly named several accused, turned hostile during trial.

Despite extensive cross-examination, nothing emerged from his testimony linking the accused either to the unlawful assembly or the murder.

The court also found that another witness, Nisar Ahmed, did not attribute any overt act to the accused when they were allegedly members of the mob.

"I accordingly find that by his mere statement that the same mob which he had seen at Johripur Pulia was responsible for the incident at his house, it cannot be presumed that the accused continued to be the part of the mob responsible for vandalism, loot and committing arson at his house," the court said.

It also rejected the prosecution's reliance on a police witness who could not identify the persons in the mob, observing that merely hearing names of accused persons being shouted did not amount to positive identification.

The court, however, convicted Himanshu Thakur under Section 411 IPC after finding that the mobile phone belonging to Mursaleen was recovered from his possession and that he had been using a SIM card in the handset.