Northeast Delhi riots: Court acquits two men, says witnesses identifying them were suspicious

Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala acquitted the two men, Mahender Kumar and Dharmender, who were accused of being part of a mob which robbed two shops at Dayalpur on February 24, 2020. They were accused in the second case of being part of a mob which set fire to a saloon and an auto repair shop causing a loss of Rs 5-6 lakh.

While going through the testimony of one witness in the first case, the court noted: “Interestingly, this witness identified only Mahender in court even though he took the name of Dharmender. Even if I presume that such name was taken in confusion, still the question would arise that if this witness had not seen Dharmender in that mob and if he had not identified him before the IO, then was it just coincidence only that he took the name of Dharmender?
Dharmender is co-accused along with Mahender and if the prosecution witness did not know Dharmender at all, then it becomes suspicious that how come he took his name.”

It asked from where did this witness hear the name of the accused, and said that these “questions have remained unanswered and in absence of cogent clarification, the identification by prosecution witnesses and claim made by him about seeing the incident, becomes doubtful”.

In the second case, the court after going through the testimony of a witness said that his claims of being beaten up by the mob were exaggerated since he did not mention the details of the beating and the identity of some of the mob members to the police.