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More than 50 people, mainly Muslims, died in the religious clashes of 2020 in Delhi
Five years after deadly religious riots have engulfed the capital of India Delhi, there is no legal closure in view for the people involved.
An analysis of the Hindi BBC revealed that more than 80% of cases related to violence in which the courts have given decisions led to acquittals or rejections.
More than 50 people, mainly Muslims, were killed after the clashes broke out between Hindus and Muslims for a controversial law on citizenship in February 2020. The deadliest violence in the city had seen for decades – extended for days, with hundreds of houses and stores burnt down by violent crowds.
The BBC had previously reported the incidents of brutality and police complicity during the riots. Police denied any reprehensible act and, in his investigation, alleged that violence was “pre-plainized” as part of a more important conspiracy to “threaten the unity of India” by people who protest against the law.
They recorded 758 cases as part of the survey and arrested more than 2,000 people. This included 18 student leaders and activists who were arrested in a case that has become the “main conspiracy case”. They were charged under an anti-terrorist draconian law which makes it almost impossible to release on bond. Only six of them have been released in five years, and some like activist Umar Khalid are still in prison, waiting for a trial to begin.
The BBC Hindi examined the status of every 758 cases filed with respect to the riots and analyzed the 126 cases in which the Karkardoomaomaoma de Delhi court had given decisions.
More than 80% of these 126 cases led to acquittals or discharges while witnesses became hostile or did not support the charge. Only 20 of these cases have seen convictions.
Under Indian law, an accused is released when a court ends a case without trial because there is not enough evidence to move forward. A acquittal is when the court judges the accused not guilty after a full trial.
In 62 of the 758 cases which were deposited for murder, there was only one conviction and four acquittals, the data accessible by the BBC by the law of India to the law of information, according to law.
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Several districts of the parts of the northeast of the city were burned in violence
A detailed analysis of the 126 orders also shown that in dozens of cases, the court returned to the Delhi police strongly for failures in the surveys. In some cases, he criticized the police for depositing “predetermined charge costs” which “wrongly implied” the accused.
In most of the 126 cases, police officials were presented as witnesses to the events. But for various reasons, the court did not find their testimonies credible.
The judges underlined the inconsistencies in police declarations, the delays in the identification of the accused by the police and, in some cases, cast doubts as to whether the police were even present when the violence broke out.
In two ordinances, the judge said he could not “remember” to say that when history had watched the riots, “the non-compliance with the investigation agency to conduct an appropriate investigation” “would torment the sentries of democracy”. The court heard cases laid against three men for criminal fire and looting – but concluded that they had been arrested without “real or effective investigation”.
Delhi police have not responded to the BBC comments. In a report lodged last April, police said to court that all investigations were carried out in a “credible, fair and impartial” manner.
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Police said the riots were part of a “wider plot”
The testimonies of some of the accused and even of the Court’s own observations, however, raise questions about the investigation.
Shadab Alam, who spent 80 days in prison, says he can never forget the terror of riots.
He had sheltered on the roof terrace of a medication store where he worked with a few others.
A few hours earlier, police had arrived at the store and asked them to close it because of the current criminal fire.
“Suddenly, they (the police) returned and took some of us to their van,” he told the BBC.
When he asked the police why he was taken, he said, they accused him of having participated in riots.
“They asked us for our names and defeated us. Almost we all stopped Muslims,” said Alam. He added that he had submitted his medical report to court which had confirmed three injuries.
In his official report, the police accused Mr. Alam and 10 other Muslims of burning a store. But the court released them before the start of the trial.
In his observations, the court criticized the police investigation by saying that the witness’s statements could have been “artificially prepared” and that “in all probabilities”, the shop was burned by a “crowd of people from the Hindu community”.
He said the police had not continued the case in this direction, although it was present when the incident occurred.
Shadab Alam spent 80 days in prison
Mr. Alam had to wait four years that the case was officially closed.
“All of this occurred during the Pandemic of Covid-19. There was a locking. We were in a frenzy state,” said Dilshad Ali, the father of Alam.
“In the end, nothing was proven. But we had to spend as much time and money to prove our innocence.”
He said the family wanted monetary compensation for their losses. “If the police have made a false case against my son, then measures should be taken against them,” he added.
In another case, the court acquitted Sandip Bhati, who was accused of dragging and beating a Muslim man during the riots.
Police had submitted two videos to show that Mr. Bhati was the culprit. But in court, his lawyer said the police submitted an incomplete clip to supervise his client.
In the complete video, which the BBC checked, Mr. Bhati is seen saving the Muslim man instead of beating him.
In his order in January, the court ruled that the police had “manipulated” the video for “framework” Mr. Bhati instead of retracing the “real culprits”.
He also asked the Delhi police commissioner to take the appropriate measures against the investigating officer in the case. The police did not answer the question of the BBC Hindi on the question of whether it had been done.
Mr. Bhati, who spent four months in prison, refused to comment, saying that he did not want to discuss his “Calvary”.
Activists like Gulfisha Fatima are still in prison with cases that drag for years
With so many acquittals, the former judge of the Supreme Court, Madan Lokur, said that the accusation and the police “should sit down to introspect what they have accomplished in five years”.
He also declared that “responsibility must also be fixed on the accusation if the arrest is deemed illegal or useless”.
“If the accusation puts someone in prison because he has the power to do so or because he wants to do it, he should not be authorized to get away if the imprisonment is deemed illegal or useless,” he added.
Even if some cases collapse in court, many people arrested still languish in prison while waiting for a trial.
Gulfisha Fatima, a 33 -year -old doctorate aspiring, is one of the 12 activists who are still in prison to be “conspirators” of the riots.
Her family said three other police cases had been deposited against her and that she had obtained a deposit in each of them. But it continues to deal with imprisonment in a fourth case under the Act respecting illegal activities (prevention) (UAPA) – the strict anti -terrorist law which establishes exceptionally difficult conditions for the surety.
“Since she went to prison, at each hearing, we hope she will finally come out,” her father Syed Tasneef Hussain told BBC.
In the case of Ms. Fatima, after months of advice, the judge of the High Court of Delhi was transferred in 2023, and now the whole affair is heard again.
“Sometimes I wonder if I can see it or if I will die before that,” said Hussain.
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