Rioters conspired to kill on phone groups: Court
nNEW DELHI: The murder of a Muslim man during the riots that took place in north-east Delhi in February was part of a “wellplanned” conspiracy plotted on a Whatsapp group by accused who were overcome by “bottomless stupidity of propaganda”, a Delhi court judge said on Tuesday while taking cognisance of the charge sheet against the 11 men who are accused in the case. The court also pulled up the Delhi Police for not invoking relevant sections despite the victims being targeted on the basis of religious identity.
The police filed a charge sheet on June 4 in connection with the murder of Aamir Khan, whose body was found from a drain in Gokulpuri, naming 11 people and charging them with offences under sections 302 (murder), 144 (unlawful assembly), 147 and 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 201 (disappearance of evidence), 395 (dacoity), 396 (dacoity with murder), 427, 432 and 435 (mischief), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. The offences entail a maximum punishment of death penalty.
Taking cognisance of the charge sheet on Monday, chief metropolitan magistrate Purushottam Pathak said, “…it is prima facie revealed that there was a well-hatched conspiracy among the accused persons. Same is evident from the fact that in order to take revenge on Muslims, some youths of that area who failed to perceive the bottomless stupidity of the propaganda, they as saviours of their community created a Whatsapp group.”
The court will next hear arguments on the framing of charges against the accused.
The accused are Lokesh Kumar Solanki, Pankaj Sharma, Sumit Chaudhary, Ankit Chaudhary, Prince, Rishabh Chaudhary, Jatin Sharma, Vivek Panchal, Himanshu Thakur, Pawan Kumar and Lalit Kumar.
According to the charge sheet, a caller informed the police control room on February 26 that he had gone to Bhagirathi Vihar to search for his missing bike.he saw a mob at the spot, armed with stones, sticks, swords and iron
COURT SAID VICTIMS TARGETED ON RELIGIOUS IDENTITY BUT POLICE DIDN’T INVOKE RELEVANT SECTIONS
rods, and they were allegedly shouting religious slogans.
The police said in the charge sheet, quoting the PCR caller, that the mob allegedly stopped two persons on a bike and killed them after establishing that they were Muslims. The mob threw their bodies in the drain, the police said.
During investigation, the police said, the officers noted that three people were following the inspecting team around the crime scene. The investigators interrogated them and checked their mobile phones. It was found they were members of a Whatsapp group named ‘’Kattar Hindu Ekta’’. According to the charge sheet, when the members of the group were rounded up, the PCR caller, who is also the witness in the case, identified the 11 accused — all members of the group — as being part of the mob that killed Aamir.
“It has been found that the common object of the unlawful assembly was not only to kill but also to destroy all evidence of that crime... There cannot be any doubt that the accused who killed Aamir Khan were certainly up to their neck in the conspiracy and were thus very active members of the unlawful assembly,” the court said.