16 acquitted in 2012 Jama Masjid police booth arson case

The court broadly observed that none of the prosecution witnesses identified any accused person, nor were their individual roles as taking part in the vandalism laid clear by police.

A Delhi court has acquitted 16 persons of setting ablaze a police booth in Jama Masjid in 2012, after noting that there were serious doubts in the prosecution’s version of events.

Police stated that the accused, in their act of vandalising public property, obstructed various police officers from conducting their duties and pelted bricks at officers in an attempt to cause disharmony.

The judgement was passed by Additional Sessions Judge Virender Kumar Kharta of Tis Hazari Courts, on September 24, who was presiding over a case wherein the men were accused of unlawful assembly, pelting stones, rioting and arson, apart from torching a police booth and committing theft at Urdu Bazar in Jama Masjid on the intervening night of 21 and 22 July, 2012, near Jagat Cinema.

Police stated that the accused persons, in their act of vandalising public property, obstructed various police officers from conducting their duties and pelted bricks at officers in an attempt to cause disharmony among the public.

The prosecution presented 39 witnesses during the trial. The court, while giving a clean chit to the men in the 13-year-old case, broadly observed that none of the prosecution witnesses identified any accused person, nor were their individual roles as taking part in the vandalism laid clear by police.

The court said that there were several inconsistencies and contradictions in the statements of the witnesses, including the complainant, besides, no independent eye-witnesses were examined, nor was there a CCTV footage. “Serious doubts have been created ok the prosecution story and two views are possible in this case and hence the benefit of the same must go to the accused persons,” the court said.

The court observed that despite several senior police officers, including the SHO of the area at the time, reaching the incident spot, no one video-graphed the incident, through which the accused persons could be identified.

Noting that things did not appear to have happened as was projected by the prosecution in its case, the court noted, “…the testimonies of the police witnesses are not of a sterling quality to secure conviction