New Delhi [India], March 20 : Delhi's Karkardooma court has framed charges against eight accused for the offence of murder of an auto driver in the Khajuri Khas area during the North East Delhi riots.
The deceased Babbu was caught in the stone pelting by two communal groups at Khajuri Chowk on February 25, 2020. He was beaten by one of the groups. He died in the Hospital two days later during treatment. He had several head injuries.
The court has discharged 11 accused persons for the lack of sufficient evidence against them.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Pulastya Pramachala passed an order on March 18 and observed, "There is sufficient evidence to frame charges eight accused for murder, rioting, and other offences."
The court has framed charges against Rahul alias Ajay, Sandeep alias Sanjeev, Harjeet Singh alias Happy, Kuldeep, Bharat Bhusan alias Lucky, Dharmender alias Dham, Sachin Gupta alias Mopi and Sachin Rastogi for the offences punishable under section 148 (rioting with a deadly weapon), 153-A (promoting enmity between groups), 302 read with 149 (murder committed by unlawful assembly), and 188 (violation of prohibitory orders under Section 144 Code for Criminal Procedure) of the Indian Penal Code.
The court has dropped the charges of conspiracy under Section 120-B IPC and making inflammatory statements under Section 505 IPC for lack of evidence.
However, the court has discharged accused Rizwan, Israr, Taiyab, Iqbal, Juber, Maroof, Shamim, Adil, Sahabuddin, Farman and Imran.
"During arguments, the relied upon two video clips were also seen in the court. Videos did show the incident of beating of a boy on the road. Said boy is stated to be Babbu. The videos made it clear that there were two rival groups of persons, who were attacking each other. In the given backdrop of the incident, it is amply clear that those were groups of persons from the Hindu and Muslim community, and that this incident was one of the incidents of communal riot, which rocked the North-East part of Delhi for almost three days. The victim was from the Muslim community and the videos showed that he was chased and assaulted on the road by the members of one of the groups, which is stated to be about persons from the Hindu community," the judge said.