'Calculated attack': Court frames murder charges against four accused in Delhi riots

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New Delhi: Calling it a calculated attack, a Delhi court has framed charges of murder, rioting, and criminal conspiracy against four accused of allegedly killing a man during the riots here last year. Anwar Hussain, Kasim, Shahrukh, and Khalid Ansari are accused of allegedly murdering a man named Deepak by beating him mercilessly near Ambedkar College on February 25, 2020. He died due to hemorrhagic shock, as per the post mortem report.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat framed charges under requisite sections against the accused persons and explained it to them in vernacular in the presence of their lawyers, to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial in the case.

The judge said, "By the manner of their mobilization and intent as construed from their conduct, the said unlawful assembly can be said to have conducted itself for riots and other offences like the murder of deceased Deepak, in the prosecution of their common object."

"The conspiracy is also writ large by the calculated attack on the victim by the unlawful assembly," he said in an order dated November 9.

The judge said that the most important witness in the case was one Sunil Kumar, who was an eyewitness to the entire incident and gave a complete picture as to how the deceased Deepak was killed by the "armed Muslim mob consisting of accused persons."

As per the court order, Sunil had stated, "On February 25, one Muslim unlawful assembly coming from Kardampuri Pulia and shouting Allah Ho Akbar was trying to cross the Pulia Gokulpur. The said armed unlawful assembly caught hold of Deepak who was mercilessly beaten."

The eyewitness stated that he hid behind a wall behind the drain and saw the entire murder through the gap in the wall.

He also identified all the four accused persons by their names.

"Thus, for the purpose of the charge, the prosecution has been able to satisfy the Court that an unlawful assembly including accused persons in the prosecution of their common object had committed riots and hit the deceased Deepak with a deadly weapon causing his death," the court noted.

The court said that there are grounds for presuming that the four accused committed offences under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with a deadly weapon), and 302 (murder) read with section Section 149 (member of unlawful assembly guilty of the offence committed in prosecution of common object) of IPC.

Charges have also been framed under sections 302 (murder) read with 120B (criminal conspiracy).

Under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), an accused should be informed of the offence under which he is charged. The basic purpose of the charge is to let them know of the offence that they are charged with so that they can prepare a defence.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi in February 2020, after violence between the Citizenship (Amendment) Act supporters and its protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and over 700 injured.