Charge sheet filed in constable’s murder

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Monday filed four chargesheets in cases related to the communal riots which took place in northeast Delhi in February this year, including for the murder of their head constable Rattan Lal.

In the charge sheet in the Rattan Lal murder case, the police have named the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC). The JCC, however, denied all charges, saying the allegations are baseless.

“These are concocted stories and baseless allegations levied by the police. The JCC was only looking after the Jamia protest site. Locals were protesting elsewhere in the capital and JCC had no involvement in it,” said a JCC member, requesting anonymity. The other three charge sheets were filed in two murder cases – of Shahid, 25, who was found dead on February 24 and Maruf Ali on February 25 – and one chargesheet was filed in Ajay Goswami’s attempt-to-murder case.

With these four new ones, a total of 85 charge sheets were filed til Monday in a total of 752 cases pertaining to the communal riots.

According to the charge sheet, on February 24 a mob “led by women” allegedly attacked the police, led by DCP (Shahdara) Amit Kumar Sharma at Wazirpur

Road in Chand Bagh, where a sit-in protest was being held since mid-January. The DCP was severely injured while Lal was shot dead.

During the same time, an investigator, asking not to be named, said the rioters barged into Saptrishi building and resorted to “indiscriminate firing and stone pelting. Later, the body of one of the rioters Shahid, 25, was found with a gunshot injury on the rooftop of the building. The bullet had pierced his body in a downward direction, suggesting that he was shot by someone who was firing from the rooftop itself,” said the investigator.