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1990 communal riot case: 34 acquitted due to police lapses

In a 19-year-old communal riot case, a Delhi court has acquitted 34 people accused of resorting to violence, and pulled up the police for its sloppy probe.

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In a 19-year-old communal riot case, a Delhi court has acquitted 34 people accused of resorting to violence, which left one person dead, and pulled up the police for its sloppy probe.
    
"The quality of investigation carried out by the police in this case is a tell-tale story of how a case can be spoilt. The entire chargesheet is nothing but a saga of police apathy towards human rights," additional sessions judge Surinder S Rathi said.
    
The court absolved 34 persons of the charges of rioting, murder and attempt to murder, noting that three public witnesses including the son of a deceased had turned hostile in the case.
    
It noted that the police simply picked up 28 people of one community on November 15, 1990 on the day when people from two communities indulged in rioting and stone-pelting in Sadar Bazar area here during the curfew.
    
A day later, the police again apprehended 19 people from another community just to solve the matter in which one Gayasuddin had received gun-shot injuries and had succumbed to them on November 17.
    
"These arrests were made in pre-meditated and designed manner only aimed at working out the case having scant regard for actual culpability or involvement of either of arrestees," the court said.
    
"It is apparent that the police simply raided the locality and picked up people of a particular community randomly on the whims and fancies," ASJ Rathi noted.
    
The prosecution which produced as many as 12 witnesses suffered a setback after none of them could refer to any specific offence of the accused in the case.

The court pulled up the police for the whimsical manner in which it probed the matter and during which neither case properties, including allegedly seized acid bottles, could be preserved properly nor any witness came forward to support  the prosecution case.
    
"It is a remarkable example of a state's failure to safeguard the fundamental rights of life and liberty of its citizens enshrined in our Constitution," ASJ Rathi observed.
    
According to the prosecution, a procession was being carried out on November 14, 1990 by an organisation 'All India Muslim Sikh Front' from Sheeshganj Gurudwara to Idgah at Sadar Bazar locality when riots started.
    
Curfew was clamped in the entire area but people indulged in stone-pelting, forcing the police to lob tear-gas shells and open fire in the air, they said, adding, three persons including Gayasuddin, who had died at RML hospital, had received gun-shot injuries in the incident.
    
The police claimed that they had arrested two persons carrying swords during the riots, besides recovering buckets of acid bottles.
    
During the trial, the court, however, noted that the witnesses Sirajuddin and Arifin, who were also injured during the firing, did not identify any accused and turned hostile.
    
Both the witnesses had failed to tell the date, month and year of the incident during which they received injuries. They also seemed unsure on whether police had opend fire during the incident.
    
Salim, son of the deceased, also denied before the court of having seen any accused.

"None of 12 witnesses examined by the prosecution have been able to assign any specific role to either of accused so as to to show that they were in any manner responsible for either causing death of Gayasuddin or were responsible for injuring others," the court noted.
    
The acid bottles were also found to be empty while the witnesses could not distinguish between the 'kirpan' and swords alleged to be recovered by the police.
    
Besides 34 people, who were acquitted in the case, six persons had died during the trial while six others had been declared proclaimed offenders.

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