NEW DELHI: A Delhi court Wednesday granted bail to three people in a case related to north- east Delhi riots in February, saying that from among the mob of several hundred who vandalised several shops, the police till date has been able to identify only them.
It further said the police has given no explanation as to why there was a 40-day gap between the incident and recording of statement of the beat constable, who identified Shah Alam, Rashid Saifi and Mohd Shadab as accused in the matter.
The court said that even the statements of the public eye witnesses in the case were recorded recently by the investigating officer (IO), much after the filing of the charge sheet.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav granted the relief to Alam, Saifi and Shadab on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 20,000 with one surety of like amount each in the case of alleged looting, vandalism and torching of a shop in Dayalpur area during the riots.
The court said they have neither been named in the FIR nor were there any specific allegations against them by the complainant Om Singh.
It further said no CCTV footage or viral video capturing their presence at the scene of the crime on the date of incident were available on record.
"The identification of applicants (Alam, Saifi and Shadab) by Beat Constable Pawan is hardly of any consequence, as this court is not able to understand as to why beat constable waited till April 5, 2020, to name them, when he had categorically seen and identified the applicants indulging in riots on the date of incident, that is February 24, 2020.
"There is gap of about 40 days between the date of incident and recording of statement of Beat Constable Pawan in the matter by the IO and no plausible explanation in this regard has been given by the IO. This casts a serious doubt on the credibility of this witness," the court said in its order.
Since they were residents of the same locality, it was not surprising that their call detail record location was being depicted at or around the scene of crime on the date of incident, it said.
"Their (public eye witnesses) statements identifying the applicants to be part of riotous mob is also doubtful, as a mute question still stares this court as to why the eye witnesses/public witnesses did not name the applicants on the date of incident itself and what made them to wait for so long.
"Further, from among the riotous mob consisting of several hundred persons, till date the investigating agency has been merely able to identify and chargesheet the three applicants only," it said.
The court directed the three persons not to tamper with evidence and install 'Aarogya Setu' app in their mobile phones.
During the hearing, advocate Dinesh Tiwari, appearing for the three persons, said that they were falsely implicated in the case and were in judicial custody since March.
Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad, appearing for the police, said that the three accused persons were active members of the riotous mob.
According to the FIR, on February 24, the riotous mob had allegedly looted and set on fire the shop of Singh due to which he suffered loss to the tune of approximately Rs 60,000.
Singh further alleged in his complaint that the mob also looted cash amount of Rs 6,000 from his shop.
Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.