Delhi court acquits 12 in 2020 riot murder cases, says WhatsApp chats not substantive evidence
New Delhi: In a significant development related to the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, a Delhi court has acquitted all 12 accused in five separate murder cases, ruling that WhatsApp chats cannot be treated as substantive evidence and may only serve as corroborative material.
The cases are among nine FIRs filed concerning the murder of nine Muslim men during the communal violence that claimed 53 lives and injured over 500 people. All five acquittals involve the same group of accused, with Delhi Police primarily relying on conversations from a WhatsApp group titled ‘Kattar Hindu Ekta’.
According to the chargesheets, one accused, Lokesh Solanki, had allegedly posted a message stating he had killed two Muslim men. This led to the arrest of others in the group. However, Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala observed in his judgments that such messages could have been exaggerated or false, posted with the intention of gaining status among peers.
“These posts may have been made to portray heroism and might not reflect the truth. Therefore, such chats cannot independently establish the accused’s guilt,” the court noted. The court emphasized that without independent corroborative evidence or reliable eyewitness testimony, the chats could not form the basis of conviction.
In the case of Hashim Ali, the court found no eyewitnesses and emphasised the weakness of the evidence. Similar findings were recorded in judgments concerning the deaths of Amin, Bhure Ali, and Hamza, where either no witness testified or all turned hostile.
In a separate ruling dated May 13, the court did convict Lokesh Solanki under sections related to promoting enmity and public mischief, stating that his messages were clearly aimed at inciting hatred against Muslims.
From 2020 to 2025, courts have delivered 109 judgments out of over 700 FIRs filed in connection with the riots. Of these, 90 cases (82%) resulted in acquittals with 57% of those due to hostile witnesses and only 19 led to convictions.
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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.
