Hostile witnesses, hazy footage lead to acquittal of 4 in Delhi riots murder case

New Delhi: A city court has acquitted all four people accused of murdering a man during the 2020 riots, holding that “identification during investigation is immaterial if the witnesses do not identify the accused during their testimonies in court”.It noted that the prosecution effectively had no eyewitnesses after key witnesses turned hostile.Additional sessions judge Parveen Kumar Singh also found CCTV footage and photographs relied upon by the prosecution to be “completely hazy”, observing that the accused — Hemant Pratap Singh, Vishal Kumar, Ashish and Gaurav — “could not have been identified by anyone at all by looking at these black-and-white snapshots as the faces are completely unrecognisable”.The court further noted that even facial recognition software analysis of the footage and photographs failed to assist the probe, with a Forensic Science Laboratory report stating that “due to poor quality, this exercise could not be completed”.On Feb 26, 2020, a mob of 30 to 40 people allegedly intercepted Suleman, Sanober and Sunil Kumar near Maa Bhagwati Memorial School in northeast Delhi’s Karawal Nagar. According to the prosecution, the mob checked their identity cards, assaulted Suleman and his companion Sanober, and dragged Suleman towards a drain, where he was later found in an unconscious state.

He was taken to GTB Hospital, but died the next day.According to the court, Sanober and Sunil were the only people who had directly faced the rioters and survived. Sunil was allegedly let off because he was a Hindu. Sanober managed to flee despite suffering head injuries.“These (Sanober and Sunil) were the two people who had come face to face with rioters and were fortunate enough to be alive to give the day’s account before the court.

Due to their close encounter with the rioters, they could have seen and identified the members of that mob. However, none of them identified in court any of the accused as part of the rioting mob,” the judge recorded.He also noted that Sanober identified Suleman in the footage only by his gait and not his face, while Sunil and Sanober retracted their earlier identification of the accused. Also, Sunil failed to identify Suleman and Sanober in the footage presented in court.Eventually, when the remaining 23 witnesses also failed to identify the accused, the court concluded it to be “abundantly clear” that the witnesses did not support the prosecution in a manner “that could bring home a guilty verdict against the accused”.