Court chastises Delhi police for filing 'erroneous' charge sheets, discharges three accused
2020 Delhi riots
New Delhi, Aug 18: A Delhi sessions court, hearing a case of the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, has come down heavily on the city police for filing the charge sheet "in a predetermined, mechanical and erroneous manner," and not investigating the incidents "properly and completely."
The court discharged three accused in the case, and referred the matter back to the police for making an assessment of the investigation done and to take further action.
Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala was hearing a case against Akil Ahmad, Rahish Khan and Irshad, who were accused of being a part of a riotous mob that engaged in stone pelting, vandalism and arson on Wazirabad Road in Brijpuri on February 25, 2020.
"All the accused persons are discharged in this case. It is worth mentioning here that this order of discharge is being passed on account of realising that the reported incidents were not properly and completely investigated and that the chargesheets were filed in a predetermined, mechanical and erroneous manner, with subsequent actions to only cover up the initial wrong actions," Pramachala said in an order passed on Wednesday.
"Hence, the matter is referred back to the police department to make an assessment of the investigation done in this case and to take further action in conformity with the law, to take the complaints to a legal and logical end," he added.
Noting that there were several riotous mobs, the court said it was the Investigating Officer's (IO's) duty to find the composition of a mob during each of the rioting incidents.
"Therefore, the presence of accused persons in the riotous mob during each of the incidents probed in this case was required to be established," it said.
The court said there was a "conflict" between the two sets of prosecution evidence which were relied upon to establish the date and time of the incidents being probed in the present case.
"One set of relied-upon evidence of the prosecution contradicts the subsequent set of evidence," it said.
Besides, the evidence before the court was also silent on certain "vital aspects," it said.
"In these circumstances, instead of having a grave suspicion against the accused persons for their involvement in the alleged incidents I am having suspicion for the IO having manipulated the evidence in the case, without actually investigating the reported incidents properly," the judge said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
