NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has granted bail to a man in a north east Delhi riots case, saying there was no CCTV footage of the incident and the victim did not identify the accused when his statement was recorded the first time.
Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat granted the relief to Osama on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 25,000 with one surety of like amount in the case related to gunshot injuries received by one Rohit Shukla during the riots at Maujpur Chowk.
The court said the victim did not identify Osama when his statement was recorded in March but in another statement recorded in April, he identified the accused as allegedly being a part of the unlawful assembly.
“Rohit had given a statement on March 9, 2020 but had not disclosed about the identification of the applicant. However, he had given another statement on April 1, 2020 whereby he stated that on February 24, 2020 at about 1.30 pm there were two groups of people, who were shouting slogan and protesting against CAA and NRC. In the crowd, one Sonu Chikna and his brother Aatir and Osama and were shouting slogans... “The crowd got violent and started stone pelting. Out of this crowd, one boy aged 24-25 years having red color hair wearing red color T-shirt and blue color pyjama and his mouth was tied with handkerchief, came out with pistol and tried to kill him. He also fired at the witness who received injuries in his left thigh and blood started oozing out. Thereafter, the boy ran away. There is also no CCTV footage of the present incident,” the court noted in its order passed on December 19.
The court directed Osama not to tamper with evidence or leave Delhi without its permission. During the hearing, advocate Abdul Gaffar, appearing for Osama, said he has been falsely implicated in the case and there were no specific allegations against him of using any violent force against the police or anyone else.
Special Public Prosecutor Jinendra Jain, appearing for the police, opposed the bail plea saying the accused was allegedly part of the unlawful assembly which pelted stones and fired upon the public persons and passersby during the riots. Communal violence had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after clashesbetween citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.