New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday discharged three accused, including former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain’s brother Shah Alam, in a case pertaining to the February 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, calling the probe “callous and indolent”.“I am not able to restrain myself from observing that when history will look back at the worst communal riots since partition in Delhi, it is failure of investigating agency to conduct proper investigation by using latest scientific methods will surely torment the sentinels of democracy,” Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav said.The court said that after investigating this matter for so long, the police presented only five witnesses – the victim, duty officer, formal witness, investigating officer, and a constable, who had identified the three accused.While discharging the accused on Thursday, the court observed that the delay on the part of the constable to report the incident gives an impression that he has been planted in the case. It added that no real or effective investigation has been carried out in the case, and the police have just tried to show the case as “solved” merely by recording the statement of the constable, that too at a belated stage.Also read: Delhi Riots 2020: A Critique of Two Purported Fact-Finding ReportsAccording to Live Law, the court observed that the case appeared to have been solved merely by filing the chargesheet “without any real effort being made to trace out eye witnesses, real accused persons and technical evidence” in the matter.It said, “The casualty in the matter is pain and agony suffered by complainant/victim, whose case has virtually remained unsolved; callous and indolent investigation; lack of supervision by superior officers of investigation and criminal wastage of the time and money of the taxpayer.”As per the report, the court further noted that the accused persons were neither specifically named in the FIR nor any specific role was assigned to them in the matter. It further noted that there was no CCTV footage of the incident to confirm the presence of the accused at the spot, no independent eye witness, and no evidence regarding the criminal conspiracy.This court cannot permit such cases to meander mindlessly in the corridors of judicial system, sweeping away precious judicial time of this court when the same is open and shut case, Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav observed.Alam’s brother Tahir Hussain was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the northeast Delhi riots conspiracy case and is currently in judicial custody. He is also an accused in several other cases.(With inputs from PTI)
