New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday, January 20, sentenced the first man to be convicted in a February 2020 riots case to five years in jail.Dinesh Yadav was convicted of participating in a riotous mob and vandalising and setting fire to a house during the riots in northeast Delhi.The complainant in this case was a 73-year-old woman, Manori, whose house near Bhagirathi Vihar had been vandalised and destroyed on the night of February 25, 2020. Manori filed a supplementary statement in which she identified Yadav. Two other witnesses, Aashik and Aarif, who are Manori’s nephews, also identified him, as did police witnesses.As The Wire has reported earlier, the case was riddled with curiosities, with the three witnesses, including complainant Manori, being declared hostile during the trial. All three denied that they had told the police that the house had been vandalised, ransacked and looted by the violent mob in their presence.Manori also went against her own words, noting later that she did not see Yadav entering the house or exiting it.In August 3, 2021, Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav framed charges against Yadav, ruling that there was enough on record, according to a LiveLaw report.“The fact that the accused also belongs to Hindu community and was present in the mob armed with a wooden rod which mob resorted to violence against the Muslims, indicates that he shared the common object of the unlawful assembly. The mere fact that he was not seen entering complainant’s house or vandalizing or looting or putting it on fire, does not mean that he was mere a bystander,” the court said.The court also said that nothing proved that Yadav’s presence at the site that day was because of the fact that he was a resident of the area.Yadav was convicted under sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon), 457 (house-trespass by night), 392 (robbery), 436 (mischief by fire) read with 149 (unlawful assembly with common object) of the Indian Penal Code.Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat’s sentencing order notes that Yadav has been held guilty “only by virtue of Section of 149 of the IPC.”“It is also to be kept in mind that the convict has been held guilty only by virtue of section 149 IPC and there was no evidence thathe had directly committed the incident of violence in which the house of victim Manori Devi had been vandalized and burnt,” the judge said.“It can not be gainsaid that the offence committed by the convict was a very serious one. However, no evidence had been led by the prosecution to prove that the unlawful assembly of which the convict was a member, had been formed in pursuance to some conspiracy,” the judge said, adding that the fact that the convict was a first-time offender and his young has been considered while deciding quantum of sentence.