Delhi Riots: Court Acquits 12 Men In Hashim Ali Murder Case

A Delhi Court has acquitted 12 men of all the charges relating to the killing of one Hashim Ali during the 2020 North-East Delhi riots.

Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala acquitted Lokesh Kumar Solanki, Pankaj Sharma, Ankit Chaudhary, Prince, Jatin Sharma, Himanshu Thakur, Vivek Panchal, Rishabh Chaudhary, Sumit Chaudhary, Tinku Arora, Sandeep and Sahil.

“I find that in the name of circumstantial evidence, there are some fragments and pieces of evidence, which fall much short to point out towards any of the accused persons as member of the culprit mob,” the judge said.

As per witness statements, the accused were carrying stones, cudgel, sticks, swords and iron rods etc. and were shouting slogans like “Jai Sri Ram” and “Har Har Mahadev”.

It was alleged that the accused were leading the mob and giving directions to their associates by calling each other by their names.

As per FIR, the accused persons were allegedly involved in killing of nine muslim persons, after checking their identity and the public witnesses had also witnessed the incident of murder of Hashim Ali.

It was alleged that the accused conspired to teach Muslims a lesson for attacking the Hindus, equipped themselves with lathis, danda, sticks, swards, fire arms etc. and killed many including Hashim Ali and his brother Aamir Khan.

In the acquittal order, the Court said that the circumstantial evidence did not support the prosecution on the aspect of identifying accused persons or any of them, as member of the mob which had intercepted Hashim and Amir.

“In fact, except for PW1, no other witness claimed having seen any incident, which could be connected with incident with Hashim and Amir,” the Court said.

The Court also rejected the argument of Prosecutor that the WhatsApp chats showed that accused Lokesh and other accused persons were involved in the riots.

“However, I find that this plea is just a general presumption without support of substantive evidence. It shall be matter of analysis of other piece of circumstantial evidence, to see if the chain of all circumstances has been connected, to show involvement of Lokesh and others in the incident leading to death of Hashim,” the judge added.

Click here to read order